


Full Leather Jacket

by Zara_Zee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Bottom Dean, Brother Feels, Drug Addiction, Drug Withdrawal, Homophobic Language, Italian Mafia, M/M, Mild D/s, Mild Kink, Minor Character Death, Mob Boss Dean Winchester, Organized Crime, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 06:14:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9706994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zara_Zee/pseuds/Zara_Zee
Summary: When notorious crime boss John Winchester throws himself in front of a bullet meant for his son, Dean not only has to step up and take charge of the Family Business, he also has to deal with his own feelings of grief and guilt; feelings that are made even worse by the horrific secret John divulged to Dean with his dying breath.Getting somewhat shit-faced and fucking a dark-haired, blue-eyed stranger is almost certainly the worst way possible for Dean to not-deal with the situation. Especially when it seems the stranger may have dangerous secrets of his own.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> _Disclaimer: Not mine, don't own. For fun, not profit._

“Should I stop him?” Sam says. “I should stop him. Right?”

Bobby rubs at his beard as he stares out of the dirt-streaked living room window and into his dusty junkyard. The place is littered with car bodies, in various states of disrepair, piles of tires, assorted car body parts and Rumsfeld, the obligatory junk yard dog. But that’s not what’s holding his attention. No, that’s held by a young man in blue jeans and a grimy, sweat-stained grey tee-shirt who is viciously taking a tire iron to the trunk of a black impala. He’s already smashed in the windshield of the car beside it and the violent assault on the car—that Bobby happens to know the young man loves a great deal—doesn’t look like stopping any time soon.

“Eh,” Bobby says. “You know your brother ain’t copin’ well with your daddy’s death. Dean’s gotta burn his grief and anger out somehow. Maybe we should just think ourselves lucky he ain’t takin’ that tire iron to somebody’s head.”

Of course, that might still happen. Dean has a nasty habit of picking fights when he’s pissed. His usual method is to go out to a bar where he won’t be recognized as Dean Winchester, heir-apparent of the Cacciatore Crime Family’s key faction, The Winchester Family—Bobby grimaces, because John’s death means Dean’s no longer the heir, he’s the head of the Family—anyway, his usual method is to go somewhere he won’t be recognized and hustle pool until someone is stupid enough to call him on it. Dean may be young and pretty—although he gets harder and more rugged looking every year—but his Daddy began training him to be a soldier at the age of four and he’s been perfectly capable of stomping heads since he was in his mid-teens.

Sam snorts and shakes his head. “He isn’t breakin’ heads _yet_ ,” he says, echoing Bobby’s own thoughts.

They both watch as Dean throws down the tire iron and then paces in a slow circle with his fingers latched behind his head. Bobby thinks he’s seen caged tigers look more at peace.

Dean stops pacing abruptly and then bounds toward the house.

“Fuck!” Sam scrambles away from the window.

By the time Dean makes it inside Sam is sitting at the table doing a crossword and Bobby is nursing a tumbler of whiskey and puffing on a fat cigar.

“Don’t think I didn’t see you two at the window,” Dean says as he pulls open the fridge and helps himself to a Budweiser.

Bobby takes the cigar from between his lips. “Hell yeah we was watchin’,” he says. “If you’re gonna put on a show like that, you’re gonna get an audience, ya idjit.”

Dean grunts and leans back against the counter, taking a long, slow pull of beer and simultaneously glowering at Bobby.

Bobby ain’t concerned; he put Band-Aids on that boy’s skinned knees, soothed his nightmares whenever he stayed over; he figures that buys him a lot of leeway when it comes to calling the new Boss on his bullshit.

Sam puts down his pen. “Dean, I’m worried about you.”

Bobby winces. Sam may be book smart, but sometimes he don’t have the sense God gave to roaches.

Dean’s stare is icy. “That a fact, College Boy?”

“I lost my father too, you know,” Sam’s voice is hard and Bobby gives him a measured, considering look.

“Really?” Dean prowls toward his brother. “If I remember right the last time you and Dad talked you were screaming at him, yelling that he cared more about his _dangerous obsession_ than he cared about his sons.”

Sam shrinks a little and when he looks up his eyes are wide and sad. “I know,” he says, “and I have to live with that. He died thinking I hated him and now I’ll never get a chance to make that right. And I’m pretty messed up over that, Dean, I admit it. But you’re messed up too. And you need to talk about it.”

Bobby winces again, because this ain’t gonna fly with Dean. Sam’s only been home from Stanford for just on a year and he sometimes forgets that while he spent four years in the ivy league mixing with academic kids from good families and learning to be _intellectual_ and _progressive_ , Dean spent four years in the family business (and one of those years in prison) mixing with gangsters and mob bosses and learning to be a cold-blooded ruthless shot-caller.

“Sure,” Dean drawls. “Let’s talk about our feelings. I’ll go first. I feel…like bashing someone’s head in with a baseball bat and then drinking so much whiskey that I can’t stand up. Should we hold hands and sing Kumbaya now?”

Sam huffs in disgust and throws his hands up in a gesture of defeat.

Dean cocks his head, eyes glinting. “Good talk,” he says and heads for the stairs.

The shower starts up.

Sam is practically vibrating, his knee bouncing and his pen tap, tap, tapping on the newspaper.

“Relax, son,” Bobby says finally.

Sam rounds on him. “Dad is dead,” he hisses. “And the bullet that killed him was meant for Dean! He’s gonna go out drinking and hustling pool and…how can you let him? He’s still in danger!”

Bobby sighs and drains the rest of his whiskey.

“First off,” he tells Sam, “your brother is Head of the Family now. It ain’t up to me to ‘let’ him do squat. Second, Dean’s always in danger. You are too, as you learned the hard way.”

Sam hangs his head, acknowledging the reminder of the apartment firebombing that killed his girlfriend a little over twelve months ago. Sam had been the target; Jess had just gotten caught in the crossfire.

“Third,” Bobby continues, “the target of Azazel’s bullet—and that fire at your place—was always your daddy. The Devil’s Own was hopin’ to mess with him by killing you boys. John seeing that Dean was about to get clipped and throwing himself in front of the bullet—in his wildest dreams, Azazel never would’ve hoped that’d happen, that they’d get him direct.”

Of course Azazel’s pleasure had been short lived as Dean had gunned him down not a moment later.

“Dean ain’t in any more danger than he usually is,” Bobby concludes, “But I’ll make sure the crew keep an eye on him.”

Sam snorts because they both know that Dean’s perfectly capable of flushing a tail. If he doesn’t want to be followed, he won’t be.

Dean comes back downstairs. He’s dressed for a night indulging in his top three coping mechanisms—booze, sex and violence. He explained the dress code once, in slurred tones, an arm slung sloppily around Bobby’s shoulder. Apparently the tight blue jeans make his ass look fuckin’ hot and the black tee-shirt and leather jacket don’t show the blood. Bobby’s still trying to forget about that night and not just because Dean puked on his shoes either. The kid also let slip that sometimes, it ain’t the ladies he’s hoping will find his ass hot and Bobby still doesn’t know what to do with that bit of information. He’s pretty sure John wouldn’t have approved.

“I’m taking ol’ blue,” Dean says, snagging the keys for Bobby’s other spare truck off the hook in the kitchen. “Don’t wait up.”

The screen door slams shut and a moment later the deep rumble of ol’ blue’s engine is quickly followed by tires spitting up gravel.

Sam’s knee is still bouncing. He’s scratching at his arm now too.

“I’ll be in my room,” he says and lopes up the stairs with his head ducked.

Bobby sighs. Dean ain’t the only Winchester with unhealthy coping mechanisms. Sam came home from Stanford with a well-developed taste for go-go juice. He told John that he and his friends only started taking Speed to help them get through their pre-law workload, and he swears he kicked the habit after Jess died, but John had been pretty sure the kid was lying about that.

Bobby loves Sam and Dean like they’re his own sons, but the Winchester boys sure do have issues.

“Them boys’ll be the death of me,” he mutters, pouring himself another whiskey.


	2. Chapter One

Dean starts his evening at The Roadhouse. The owner, Ellen Harvelle is the closest thing he has to a mom and he can usually count on her to smack some sense into him. 

Not tonight though. Tonight he’s getting fucked up, no matter how many people tell him he needs to keep it together. 

Dean downs his third shot of Tequila and raps his glass against the bar top. 

“Keep ‘em coming, Bar wench,” he calls to Jo, Ellen’s daughter and the sassy little sister Dean never knew he wanted until the Harvelles became a regular fixture in his life.

It’s Ellen who comes across with a bottle of Don Julio. She refills his glass and then folds her arms on top of the bar and leans toward him.

“You want me to leave the bottle?” she asks.

Dean thinks about it, but shakes his head. He’ll at least do her the courtesy of not getting wasted here. Drunk-Dean leads to fighting, and fighting leads to loss of business for the bar. And hefty repair bills too. 

Ellen looks relieved and Dean feels a little guilty about that, because he knows it’s him she’s worried about, not the bar, and getting totalled is still very much on his agenda. 

“Have a drink with me,” he says.

Ellen pours herself a shot and they clink their glasses together and take a drink. Dean savors the strong, smooth flavor of burnt sugar and lime and then swallows. 

“Damn that’s good,” he says. 

“Yeah,” Ellen says with a far-away expression and fond tone. “This was my Bill’s favorite,” she sniffs and slams back the rest of her shot. “Never could lure your daddy away from Jose Cuervo, although Jim Beam was really his drink.”

The ache in Dean’s chest breaks open just a little more. “What can I say?” he fishes a pack of Dunhill Gold out of his jacket pocket. “He was a man of simple tastes.”

Ellen gives him the evil eye. “I thought you quit.”

Dean shrugs. “Fell off the wagon.”

Ellen straightens up and folds her arms across her chest. “That shit’ll kill you.”

Dean lights up. “It’ll have to wait in fuckin’ line,” he says darkly.

Ellen’s lip curls and she inclines her head, conceding the point, maybe. She passes him a black plastic ashtray from beneath the counter and watches him silently for a moment. “We’re heading for another all-out mob war aren’t we?” 

Dean meets her eyes. “I don’t think it’ll come to that. Things might be rough for a while, but I don’t think we’re looking at a repeat of ‘83.”

“God I hope not,” Ellen says. 

She looks shaken. But then Ellen remembers the last war a lot better than he does.

Dean was only four when The Devil’s Own tried to wipe out the Winchester Family. 

On November 2nd 1983, they launched a series of co-ordinated attacks and managed to take out a lot of the Family’s high ranking soldiers. The Winchesters fought back, of course, even brought in some of the Cacciatore Family’s other factions from out of state to help, but it wasn’t until John got the Santangelo Family to side with them, that they were able to force a truce. 

Dean’s grand-parents and his mom were killed in the first wave of attacks. And so was Ellen’s husband Bill.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Dean tells her, reaching out and covering her hand with his. 

“I know,” Ellen says, but she doesn’t look convinced.

“We’ve still got the weight of The Cacciatore Family behind us,” Dean reminds her, “And the Santangelos are still on our side. I met with Michael after Dad’s funeral,” he swallows past the lump in his throat. “They’re happy with the current distribution of territory and business and they’re just as concerned as we are about the recent rise in Demon activity.”

Ellen smiles at Dean’s use of the derogatory nickname for The Devil’s Own foot soldiers. 

“I ain’t sayin’ there won’t be skirmishes,” Dean says, “and I ain’t saying we won’t be lookin’ for a little payback,” he’s well aware that a lot of his crew is in the bar, listening in, “I dealt with Azazel, but Nick Morningstar knows we’re gonna need a little more in compensation. Ball’s in his court now, and I’m guessing he’ll do the right thing rather than risk another all-out war.”

It might not be the most rousing speech in the history of rousing speeches, but Dean doesn’t believe in blowing smoke up people’s asses. The hubbub around him sounds satisfied and upbeat, so Dean figures he’s done enough _fearsome leader_ -ing for the night. 

He drains the last of his Tequila and gets to his feet. “But we all know that shit happens, so how about we turn the music up and party like there’s no tomorrow anyway? Drinks on me, Ellen,” he adds, and that does bring forth a raucous round of applause. Dean writes the amount of the bar tab he’s willing to cover onto a beer matt and then makes his way toward the pool tables.

He beats Victor and Gordon and loses to Ash and then teams up with Pamela to play a game of doubles against Tamara and Isaac. Pam is her usual sassy self, fondling the cue suggestively and wiggling her ass whenever she leans over to take a shot. Pam’s a good friend and an occasional fuck buddy. Her husband Jesse is doing ten years in in El Dorado for aggravated assault (knowingly causing bodily harm). Dean was on remand there for a while, on a RICO charge they couldn’t make stick, and he got firsthand evidence that Jesse is definitely engaging in extra-marital fucking around. The guy sure has got a talented mouth on him. 

Pam thinks it’s awesome that Dean has fucked both of them and she wants them to have a threesome when Jesse gets out, which definitely _won’t_ be happening. Gay for the stay is one thing, but to be a fag on the outside? In their world that’s not acceptable.

Pam sticks her butt out and gives it a little shake, making it obvious to Dean that she’s available if he wants to blow off a little steam in the sack. He lets his eyes roam over her ass and long shapely legs, sees the hint of the _Jesse Forever_ tattoo peeking out from the top of her jeans. Pam’s always a good time, but she’s not what Dean’s looking for tonight. He catches her eye and shakes his head, subtly. She gets the message and switches to flirting with Henricksen instead. Dean bites back a laugh. Pam’s going to eat Vic alive.

His Campbell cousins turn up just as Dean’s thinking it’s time to make his escape. It’s an excuse to move away from Victor and Gordon, who he’s pretty sure have been tasked by Bobby with keeping an eye on him. 

Dean snags a bottle of Glenfiddich on his way past the bar and settles in a booth with Mark and Christian. They all drink a solemn toast to John Winchester and then Christian starts pushing for a bigger role in the family business. The Campbells were a Crew in their own right back in the day and Christian still harbors a lot of resentment that Mary’s marriage to John Winchester had seen the two Family businesses join together, with the Campbells subordinate to the Winchesters.

“Dude,” Dean says, looking up and meeting his cousin’s eyes. “It’s Saturday night, man. I ain’t talkin’ business now,” he raises his glass. “Have another drink. I’ll leave the bottle.”

Dean heads toward the restrooms and then ducks out the back door. 

He doesn’t take Ol’ Blue, choosing instead, to hotwire Jo’s car, because he’s sure that Bobby will have someone watching the old truck.

Dean doesn’t actually make Benny’s tail until he’s twenty minutes down the I-70. He gives himself a moment to appreciate the Cajun’s professionalism and then he gets his cell phone out and calls him.

“Hello, brother,” Benny answers in his slow, easy drawl. 

“I’m going to _Buddy’s_ ,” Dean tells him.

He hears Benny’s sharp inhale of breath and after a brief moment of silence, Benny says lowly, “You want…we could?”

“No,” Dean says.

He and Benny hooked up once. It was shortly after Sammy left to go to college and Dean wasn’t in the best place. Sam had been so full of righteous fury when he left. It didn’t seem to occur to him that Dean might’ve had dreams of his own. That maybe he had wanted a different life too. Dean didn’t have a choice though. Dad needed him. And besides, he was already too immersed in the Life, wasn’t sure he had it in him to do _normal_. It hadn’t stopped him being gutted when his little brother walked out on his family though. So Dad sent him and a couple of the guys to Florida to take care of a little supply problem, because any chance to bash in heads usually makes Dean happy. 

When the job was done, Dean decided to drown his sorrows in a shit load of whiskey and then he went to _Purgatory._

Yeah, the club in Miami. 

A year earlier, he’d admitted to himself that he was attracted to other guys, but no way in Hell was he going to come out. You couldn’t head up a Family, couldn’t be any kind of a shot-caller if you were queer. So Dean was keeping that part of his life strictly on the down-low. Clandestine fumbles in the dark, never the same guy twice. And definitely no one that he knew.

Which is why he freaked the fuck out when he came face-to-face with Benny in _Purgatory_. 

Benny wasn’t exactly thrilled to come face-to-face with the boss’s son either, but when it became apparent that they were both simply looking for a night of no-strings-attached sweaty man sex, they moved things to a pay-by-the-hour motel. Benny was older and more experienced and the sex was good. It was also something Dean knew could never happen again. Benny worked for the Family. He was Dean’s subordinate. And one day, Dean would be the Head of the Family. A relationship with Benny—even if they were only regular fuck buddies—would compromise Dean. He couldn’t— _wouldn’t_ allow it. 

“No,” Dean says again, trying to soften his tone, to take the sting out of the rejection. “You should head on home. Enjoy the rest of your night.”

“I can’t do that, Brother,” Benny sighs. “Bobby would have my hide. Your brother would too.”

Dean snorts and Benny’s silence is somehow reproachful. “You and Sam,” he says finally, “that ain’t the one way street you seem to think it is. Sam worries for you too, brother.”

“He shouldn’t have to,” Dean mutters. 

“That ain’t the way family works.”

Dean knows Benny’s right, but ever since the night their house was firebombed, ever since Dad put baby Sammy into his young arms and told him to take his brother outside as fast as he could and to look after him while Dad fought the flames and tried to save Mom, Dean has felt responsible for his brother. 

And Dad let him be responsible for him. Encouraged it even. 

John Winchester was gutted by his wife’s death. Dean didn’t know it until years later, but a Demon had broken into their house and tried to kidnap Sam. Mary had interrupted him when she went to check on the baby before going to bed, and he’d stabbed her. Her screams had brought John running and the Demon had thrown the Molotov cocktail and booked it, while John cradled a dying Mary in his arms. 

The Demon had worn a balaclava, but it became John’s life mission to hunt down and kill the man responsible for his wife’s death. The truce that the Santangelos brokered made it difficult to take overt action though, and truth be told, John was pretty paranoid for a few years following Mary’s death. He was so certain that The Devil’s Own would come after his children again, that he was constantly on the move. Dean and Sam grew up in a parade of safe houses all over the state, never in the one place for more than a few months as John tried to stay ahead of the Demons he was sure were tracking them. He also drilled his boys in the use of guns, knives and bows and trained them in several forms of martial arts, determined that they would have the skills to fight off attackers from a young age. 

It was a strange way to grow up and while Dean could remember a time when life was more normal and knew how easily normal could be taken away, Sam had no recollection of that time and was resentful that he didn’t get to live the apple pie life that his school friends did. 

They were close though. Best friends. The one constant each of them had in an unstable, insecure, constantly-changing life. One school principal had even called them ‘neurotically co-dependent’, a comment that resulted in Dean breaking the man’s nose. In Dean’s defence, he misheard Principal Sadler and thought he’d said ‘erotically co-dependent’, thought he was being accused of molesting his little brother. Dad was equal parts amused by and proud of Dean’s reaction to the imagined slight, so Dean didn’t even get his ass handed to him for getting expelled from yet another school. 

Of course, that closeness went to shit when Sammy dumped them to go to Stanford. Dean still thought Dad was wrong to tell Sam that if he went he should stay gone. Having a lawyer in the Family—who was _actually_ family—was a good idea and he didn’t share his Dad’s fear that Sam would turn on them.

Dean scowls and brings his hand down hard against the steering wheel. He’d loved and admired his Dad unreservedly, but the old man sure was a paranoid sonofabitch. Things had just been starting to get back to normal between Dean and Sam and then, with his dying breath, Dad had fucked it all to Hell. 

“Dean,” he’d panted, as his chest cavity filled with blood, “you have to save Sam. The drugs. I think he’s got…a problem. And…may be more than…addiction. May be… forced…to…rat. Dean,” his Dad had grasped at him urgently. “May have to kill him.” 

And then he’d died, leaving Dean staring at him, unsure if he’d really understood what his Dad had been trying to tell him. If Dad thought that Dean had it in him to kill the brother he’d practically raised himself, then he didn’t know Dean very well. And if he thought that Sammy would turn rat, then he didn’t know Sam very well either. 

Dean knows he’s going to have to talk to Sam about this. And he will. But he can’t face it yet. 

“I know, man,” he tells Benny. “But Bobby and my brother gotta realize that I’m in charge now. I get that they’re worried, but there are times when I need a little privacy.”

“Yeah,” Benny agrees. “I think maybe that’s why Bobby tagged _me_ to tail you if you tried to sneak away.”

Dean snorts again. He sometimes forgets that there’s not a lot gets past his Dad’s number two. Dean wishes he didn’t remember the drunken conversation during which he, more-or-less, confessed to Bobby that he wasn’t entirely straight, but he’s genuinely surprised by the suggestion that he knows about Benny’s proclivities too. 

“Okay,” he says. “How about you park somewhere and watch the door. I’ll text you an address when I move things off the premises.”

Benny’s rumble of agreement is an unhappy one.

\--

_Buddy’s_ is a dive bar, the kind of place where the floor is sticky, the lights are dim and the restroom smells like a porta-john on a hot day. In other words it’s seedy as fuck and Dean didn’t even realize it was a gay bar the first time he walked through its doors; he was just looking for a cold beer after a frustrating afternoon spent helping his dad divvy out the rackets and businesses of the recently-shot-dead-for-being-a-rat Kansas City crew boss. Dean finally worked out he was in a gay bar when he got openly hit on in the restroom, which, so not happening, not with the stink and the sticky floors, and besides his dad was drinking a beer at the bar. His dad hadn’t noticed the place was anything other than a dive bar, thank God, and Dean had moved them out of there pretty quickly, fed his old man a line about wanting to get back to Lawrence because he had a hot date with Lisa lined up. 

As luck would have it, his dad decided that the Kansas City crew were going to have to be closely watched—the kick-ups from the River Quay Entertainment District were an important earner for the Winchesters—and he appointed Dean to be the overseer, which meant that Dean was over in Kansas City a fair bit for a few months, and he became something of a regular down at _Buddy’s._

He’s sitting up at the bar now, making his way through his fourth pint of whatever’s on tap. He’s not falling down drunk yet, but added to the Tequila and whiskey he’d downed at _The Roadhouse_ , the beer has him nicely buzzed. When someone takes the bar stool beside him, he barely notices, beyond registering that they’re not a threat. 

“Vodka, neat,” the man says, in a gravelly voice that goes straight to Dean’s groin.

Dean turns to look at the man. He’s good looking in profile; a strong jawline, dimpled chin and messy dark hair. He’s wearing a beige trench coat on top of a suit and Dean is trying to think of a pick-up line that isn’t too obvious when the man frowns at the bartender. “No,” he says, “not that Russian crap. Give me the Wyborowa. And make it a double. No, a triple. Actually, just leave me the bottle.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Wow,” he says. “Tough day, huh?”

The man glances at him and does a double take, eyes widening before giving him a thorough once over. Dean can’t help preening a little at the obvious interest in the man’s eyes. 

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” the man mutters, slamming back his triple shot. 

(The bartender refuses to leave the bottle, but he does hover, and he tops up the man’s glass the moment he holds it out.)

Dean waves the bartender over. “Gimme a shot of that too,” he says, “and put it all,” he indicates both his drink and the man in the trench coat’s, “on my tab.”

“Thank you,” the man raises his glass in Dean’s direction. 

.“If this vodka ain’t Russian,” Dean says, when his shot has been poured, “then what is it?” 

“Polish,” the man says. “We invented vodka, the Russians just stole it.”

“You’re Polish?” 

The man shrugs. “Polish-American. Among other things.”

Dean takes a sip. “Not bad. So. Tax Accountant or lawyer?”

Because if he’s thinking about fucking the guy (and he is) then he needs to get a bit more of a bead on him; at the very least make sure he isn’t law enforcement.

The man snorts. “Unemployed. This,” he gestures at his clothes, “is because I had a job interview today. At the local Gas-N-Sip.”

“Don’t tell me—they took one look at you in that suit and decided you were over qualified?”

The man shakes his head. “No, they took one look at my Bachelor’s degree in Applied Science/ Aeronautical Science, my undergraduate pilot training certificate, my officer training certificate and my ten years of service as a fighter pilot, and decided I was over qualified.”

“Ouch,” Dean says.

_“Na zdrowie,”_ the man says, raising his third triple shot and downing it.

Dean scoots his bar stool a little closer to the man and offers his hand. “Dean,” he says. “Good to meet you.”

The man stares for a moment and then grips his hand. He has a good, firm hand shake. “Castiel.”

“So, Cas,” Dean offers his most charming smile. “Did you just come in here to drown your sorrows or were you lookin’ for a little action of the _don’t ask, don’t tell_ variety?”  
Castiel raises an eyebrow at the shortening of his name, but doesn’t comment. “I was just planning on drinking. I’m not averse to the idea of ‘action’,” Dean can actually hear the air quotes in his tone. “But…if you were,” Cas pauses, “ _offering_ , I’m not sure we’d be compatible.”

“I’m versatile,” Dean says.

“As am I. But right now I have no desire to bottom. Sorry.”

Dean’s pulse quickens and he wipes his suddenly sweaty hand on his thigh. “Works for me,” he says, aiming for nonchalant.

Cas stares at him again. It’s actually a little disconcerting. “My apologies, Dean. It was presumptuous of me to assume that I could intuit your sexual preferences based on my perception of your masculinity.”

Dean shifts uncomfortably. “Yeah, well. You know what they say about ‘assume’. Although any sentence that has ‘you’ and ‘me’ and ‘ass’ in it can’t be all bad, right?”

Cas inclines his head and his brow furrows in a way that says ‘mildly perplexed.’

The guy can’t be stupid, not with all those degrees and what not. Maybe he’s just very literal. Dean licks at his lips and Cas tracks the movement of his tongue with intent. Literal. Okay. Dean can work with that.

“You wanna get outta here?” Dean says. “Move this someplace private?”

“I would like that,” Cas says.

Dean signs off on his bar tab and then slides off his bar stool, stumbling just a little. 

Cas’s eyes narrow. “How much have you had to drink?”

“Relax, I ain’t too drunk to consent. How about the Value Inn round the corner? They don’t do pay by the hour, but it’s only $80.00 a night.”

Cas is staring again. Dean frowns and Cas clears his throat. “My apartment is just down the road. This isn’t a good area of town to live in and the apartment block is…not nice. But I can vouch for the cleanliness of the bed linen.”

“Sold,” Dean says. He gets his phone out. “Can you give me the address? I gotta let my friend know where I’m going. You know, in case you turn out to be a homicidal maniac.”

Cas’s lips curl into a smile. “Of course,” he gives Dean the address and Dean texts it to Benny. 

“And what about if _you_ turn out to be a homicidal maniac?” Cas asks, his eyes twinkling.

Dean laughs. He probably fits that definition. He’s certainly killed his fair share of men, although he likes to think he wasn’t a maniac about it. And the world ain’t gonna miss not even one of the douchebags he’s offed. Hell, a few of ‘em were such assholes even their families were grateful.

He leans in close to Cas. “Well then, maybe you better tie me to your bed. For your own safety.”

The flare of heat in Cas’s eyes promises a fun night of debauchery.

\--

Cas’s place is no worse than a lot of the so-called ‘safe houses’ that Dean and Sam grew up in. The apartment block is run down, but there are no graffiti tags on the walls; no litter; no upturned shopping carts. The residents keep things clean and tidy and Dean feels immediately at home. Not that Cas’s apartment is particularly homey. It too, reminds Dean of a lot of the places he grew up in. Impersonal; functional. At least until he and Sammy put their mark on it; Sam’s drawings on the fridge, their photographs pinned to the walls; their books and magazines lying around. 

Cas doesn’t have anything lying around. He has one small book shelf and that’s it, as far as personal touches go. There are no paintings or photographs, no nick-nacks or keepsakes. 

But then, after ten years of military service, Dean figures Cas hasn’t had a lot of time for home-making. And as far as photos and keepsakes go, maybe there just isn’t a lot from the last decade that Cas wants to remember.

“This way,” Cas says and leads him into the bedroom. 

The bedroom is as Spartan as the rest of the apartment, but Cas does have an awesome king sized bed, complete with a cast iron frame, perfect for tying someone down. 

“Nice,” Dean says. “You prefer ropes or cuffs?”

Cas growls and when Dean turns back to face him, he’s scowling. “Letting a stranger tie you up is reckless, Dean.”

Dean’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. He’s never had a casual hook up complain about his willingness to get kinky before. 

“Never said I was a saint,” he replies. “And you’re hardly an angel, letting a stranger into your home.”

Cas’s expression darkens. “I can take care of myself.”

And Dean is so done with this conversation. He’s not here for dialogue, he’s here for action. 

He steps forward and palms Cas’s already hard cock through the thin material of his suit pants. “But it’s so much more fun when somebody else takes care of it for you.”

Cas swallows and his pupils dilate. 

Dean smiles. He opens Cas’s pants and pulls out his cock before dropping to his knees. Cas inhales, his breath rattling and unsteady. Dean takes a moment to admire the cock before him. Cas is a decent size, eight inches long by Dean’s estimate and about five inches in circumference. Damn. That’s going to hurt so good going in. Dean lightly squeezes the base of Cas’s cock and runs his tongue around the tip, before sucking the mushroom head into his mouth, tonguing and sucking until Cas is gasping. Dean looks up at him and then relaxes his throat and sucks him down to the root. Cas’s hands come down to grip his hair and Dean hums approvingly, which makes Cas groan loudly. He pulls back until only the tip rests in Dean’s mouth and then fucks back in deep and hard, his eyes on Dean’s the whole time. Dean gives him a thumbs up and Cas lets loose. By the time Cas tugs urgently on his hair, Dean’s throat is sore, his eyes are watering, he’s got drool running down his chin and his own cock is trying very hard to poke through the denim of his jeans. He pulls off and wipes at his face and then Cas is hauling him to his feet.

“Strip,” Cas rasps, like he was the one who just got his throat fucked.

Dean throws him a sloppy salute. “Sir, Yessir!” 

Cas sucks in a harsh breath and Dean figures he just hit one of the guy’s bullet proof kinks. 

He wastes no time getting naked and neither does Cas.

“On the bed,” Cas orders. 

Dean scrambles to assume the position: on his knees, face down, ass up, resting on his forearms, legs spreads wide.

“Back in a minute,” Cas says and rushes from the room.

Dean frowns, but stays where his is.

“Look at you,” Cas says a moment later, his voice filled with wonder. “So good for me. Just holding that position and waiting to get fucked.”

Dean’s not going to lie; he really gets off on being told what to do in bed. Even before he figured out he liked dick too, he loved fucking around with bossy women; women who’d take charge in the sack. Women like Rhonda Hurley who made him try on her pink satin panties when he was nineteen. When she realized how much the soft satin rubbing against his balls turned him on, she dropped to her knees, licked and nuzzled at his cock through the material, and then put him on his belly, pulled the panties down and rimmed him. That was another first. Her tongue in his ass was quickly followed by a slender finger. Then another one. By the time she opened the box under her bed and pulled out the strap-on, he was panting, desperate, and fuck, he _wanted_ it. Wanted _something_ to shove itself deep inside of him and ignite that hot spark of pleasure. 

It hurt, the way her dildo pried his ass open, too far, too fast. But Dean is messed up enough that he even liked that. 

They moved to a new safe house a few days later and Dean hasn’t seen Rhonda since. After her, though, he started adding a couple of fingers up his ass to his jerk-off routine. And the next time he found himself craving the pleasure/pain of a deep, hard dicking he chose a partner who came with the equipment attached. He still mostly fucked women, but now he often chose women who had no qualms about throwing him down and riding him like he was nothing more than a means to an end. 

Cas runs a hand over his ass. Dean hears a _click_ and a _gloop_ and then a cold oily finger is slipping into his ass. 

“You’re really tight,” Cas says.

Dean rolls his eyes at the concern in the other man’s voice. “Yeah, it’s been a while.”

“I’ll go easy on you,” Cas promises.

Dean stiffens. “I don’t want you to.”

That’s not what he wants from guys. He’s not looking for a lover. For care and consideration. He’s looking to get fucked. To be used. He wants it hard and rough and he’ll leave straight after, because there’s no way he’d be able to look a guy in the eye the morning after. He picks guys who’ll get that. Guys who want no-strings-attached fucking and no romance. Cas is military. Military guys are usually perfect for this kind of thing.

Dean’s ass is suddenly empty and he panics for a moment, worried that he’s read Cas all wrong, but then two fingers bury themselves inside of him, readying him with a perfunctory lack of care that borders on brutal and the sharp burn makes Dean’s hips stutter forward.

Cas growls. “Stay still,” and then a hand is pressing against the back of his head, holding him in place.

Dean feels the tension start to leach out of him.

The prep is just barely enough and when Dean feels the sheathed head of Cas’s cock press against his asshole, he breathes out and makes himself relax. 

Cas sinks in fast and doesn’t even give him time to adjust before he’s pulling out and hammering in again. The burn is just the right side of the pleasure/pain divide, and the remaining tension drains from Dean like someone took the plug out the tub. Dean is a ragdoll, being held down and used so good, no worries, no responsibilities, he just has to lie here and take the pounding, and every slam of Cas’s hips, every forceful stroke, helps him breathe a little easier. 

Dean comes, wet and messy, with a groan on his lips and Cas’s hand on his cock. Cas continues to stroke him until Dean mewls, over-sensitive and sore and then he lets go and moves his hands to Dean’s hips, fucking him so hard that Dean actually slides up the bed. 

Dean kind of wants to be done now. He’s sore and he’s sated, but he owes Cas an orgasm, so he squeezes his sphincter and Cas comes hard. He pulls out straight away and heads out of the room, presumably to go clean up in the bathroom. Dean sits back on his haunches and…huh…when did Cas put that fluffy white towel underneath him? Dean picks it up and folds it so as to avoid the wet patch. He wipes the come from his dick and the lube from his ass and then throws the towel on the floor and starts collecting his clothes.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Cas’s voice is rough and raspy.

Dean channels his inner crime boss. “Sorry, sweetheart, I don’t stick around to cuddle after I’m done fucking.”

Cas’s eyes widen. In the dim light they look somehow bluer. “We’re _not_ done,” he says. “That was just round one. 

Dean’s dick, traitorous fucker that it is, twitches happily at the thought of more action. His ass, though, puts in a word of protest, and Dean’s upstairs brain is feeling way too fried to have to referee an argument between the parts of his body that are enthusiastically on board with the _more fucking_ plan and the parts that aren’t. Or something. Now that the adrenaline rush from the really, really ridiculously good sex is over, Dean’s evening of steady drinking is starting to catch up with him.

And that’s the only reason why he allows Cas to manhandle him into bed and then spoon him, with a possessive arm thrown over his waist. 

The _only_ reason. 

Shut up.

Dean’s starting to drift off to sleep when he feels fingers stroking against his rim. He feels wet and puffy and sore down there and his hips cant forward, trying to move away from the questing fingers. Cas hauls him back and holds him still with a hand splayed out across his belly.

“Did I hurt you?” Cas asks softly.

“No,” Dean says. Because he didn’t. Not in ways he doesn’t like to be hurt anyway.

“Is this okay?” Cas presses a little harder, the tip of two fingers sinking just inside of Dean’s ass.

“Depends,” Dean says. “Is that the best you’ve got?”

Which is how he finds himself folded like a pretzel, getting his prostate ruthlessly pounded with every deep thrust of Cas’s dick. 

It’s funny how often macho posturing leads to get thoroughly fucked up the ass.

By the time Cas pulls out, Dean’s a sweaty mess with drying spunk on his belly and in his pubes. He’s feeling boneless and drugged, and he couldn’t have gotten out of bed if Cas had demanded he leave. 

Luckily, Cas has plans for a third round in the morning, so Dean tells him to feel free to wake him up with a good morning fuck and floats off to sleep feeling better rested than he has in a long time. 

\--

Dean wakes up to the smell of bacon, toast and coffee. His head is fuzzy, his mouth tastes like something died in it and when he rolls over and disturbs the sheets the stink of sex makes his ass clench involuntarily. Dean winces. And then grins. And then has to fight off a panic attack when he realizes that he’s still in his hook-up’s apartment. Also, he left both his gun and his knife in the car, because he learned early on that packing heat tended to freak out potential bed mates. 

He clutches at his chest and breathes through the heart-pounding and the shaking like that court-appointed psychiatrist taught him to. She knew some good tricks, that chick, but he threw out the bottle of Ativan she prescribed for him and he didn’t go back once the court mandated sessions were done. He ain’t Tony frigging Soprano; so what if he’s a functional alcoholic who fights and fucks his way through stress?

Once he’s back on an even keel, Dean gathers up his clothes and stumbles into the shower. He takes his time, uses up all the hot water and then blasts himself with cold until he’s shivering and 90% awake. He squeezes some of Cas’s toothpaste into his mouth and takes a drink of water from the faucet, swirling and spitting until his mouth tastes minty fresh.

Of course he has to pass through Cas’s kitchen to get to the front door and the sight of Cas, bleary-eyed and tousle-haired, standing at the stove in nothing but black briefs and an apron stops him in his tracks.

Cas turns to him and grunts. “Coffee,” he says, pointing at a pot.

Dean could really go for a coffee, but he doesn’t do breakfast with hook ups. It’s a hard and fast rule, one that he doesn’t break.

“Thanks,” he says. “But I gotta go.”

Cas nods and turns back to the stove. “Suit yourself.”

Dean watches as Cas begins to plate up crispy bacon, poached eggs and grilled tomato. 

His stomach rumbles.

Rules are so over rated. And really, what is the point of being a bad ass crime boss if you can’t break rules when you want to?

Dean strides across to the coffee pot and pours himself a cup before he can change his mind. When he turns around there are two plates of food on the kitchen table.

“Yours if you want it,” Cas says. “If you don’t I’ll cover it and put it in the fridge, have it for supper.”

Cas’s apron says ‘Kiss me, I might be a prince,’ and has a large picture of a green toad on it.

“So are you?” Dean says.

Cas looks perplexed and Dean tries not to find it adorable. He gestures at the apron as he slides into the seat opposite Cas.

Cas looks down. “Oh,” he says. He looks up and meets Dean’s eyes. “Yes. I am.”

There’s something almost challenging in the way he says it, a hint of darkness that Dean finds himself responding to. That and the twinge in his ass remind him of something and he frowns.

“Hey, didn’t you promise me a round three this morning?”

Cas swallows a mouthful of bacon and then busies himself cutting another piece. “Who says we didn’t have another round this morning?”

Dean gapes at him. “Really? You fucked me while I was asleep?”

Cas inclines his head. “You said I could.”

Dean’s mouth falls open a little more. “No way. I would definitely have woken up if you stuck your dick in my ass.”

Cas grins. “You’re right. I didn’t. I thought about it though. You did give me the green light and you’re very tempting. But when you’re not awake and posturing you look very young and innocent and,” Cas shrugs. “You fell asleep pretty quickly. I wasn’t sure how drunk you were.”

“Not as drunk as I’d planned to be. I’m barely even hungover. And I hate to disappoint you, Cas, but the boat carrying my innocence sailed a long time ago.”

Cas smiles sadly. “I can relate to that.”

They finish their breakfast in companionable silence and Dean realizes that he maybe kind of sort of likes Cas and wouldn’t mind seeing him again. And maybe it’s not such a bad idea? Maybe a regular hook up who has nothing whatsoever to do with Dean’s world, who’s strong and smart and who knows how to handle himself in a dangerous situation, maybe that’s exactly what Dean needs.

“So,” Dean picks his plate up and carries it to the sink. “This was good. Wanna swap numbers?”

Cas is silent for far too long. 

“It’s no big deal if you don’t,” Dean says, making damn sure to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

“It’s not that I,” Cas sounds as frustrated as Dean feels. “I’m not looking to date right now.”

“Me either,” Dean says. “And this wouldn’t be that. But good sex is worth coming back for.”

“It was good,” Cas’s eyes darken and he gets up from the table and stalks Dean like he’s prey. When he reaches him he traps him against the sink, his arms a steel cage keeping Dean in place. “You feel up to that round three I promised you?”

It sounds like a challenge and Dean has never been one to back down from a challenge.


	3. Chapter Two

“Well look what the cat dragged in,” Rufus drawls from his place at Bobby’s kitchen table.

Between him and Bobby there are a bunch of files and folders and Dean rubs a hand across the back of his neck, aware that he fucked up here, but honestly, he’s not sorry.

“I texted Bobby that I’d be late,” he says.

Bobby turns and glowers at him and it’s a testament to how thoroughly relaxed Dean is feeling that he isn’t itching to punch either of the old codgers in the face. 

Bobby practically raised him. After Dean did that stint in juvie when he was fourteen, his dad needed to provide a fixed address for his release. John cautiously decided that maybe a stable place to live for a while, might be a good thing for the boys. Of course, he didn’t go so far as to actually offer the stable place himself. No, John continued to travel and to move around, but he left the boys in Bobby’s care. Dean went back on the road with his dad once he hit eighteen, something Sam’s never really forgiven him for, but he’s been staying at Bobby’s since his old man got the long kiss goodnight. 

Rufus and Bobby were both in John’s company when they got drafted to fight in Vietnam and they’ve been close friends ever since. Dean considers them blood and he respects both of them as senior members of the Family. 

But the baton has changed hands. Dean’s in charge now and there’s only so much disrespect he’s willing to take. The old timers can be as pissed at him for being late as they want, but they better wise up and let it go. 

He fixes Bobby with a look that promises trouble if he doesn’t tread carefully and then saunters across to Bobby’s coffee maker and puts on a fresh pot. “Tell me where you’re up to,” he says.

There’s a moment of silence and then Bobby is all business. “All the reports are in and we’ve been through eighty per cent of them. So far, there ain’t nothing you need to be concerned about there. Business is good. Demon skirmishes are becoming an issue. They’re mainly just a nuisance, but what with losing your daddy, we’re concerned they may step things up a notch.”

Dean nods. “They’ll want to test me.”

Bobby closes the folder in front of him. “And we’ll be ready for that and we’ll deal with it however you think is best. What you have to do is pick your leadership team. The old team’s been carrying the load, but you need to step up now, put your mark on the crew. The sooner the better. And,” Bobby hesitates and then says gravely, “you need to _talk_ to Sam.”

Dean knows he doesn’t mean about the weather. He waits for the panic to hit, for the feeling that he can’t breathe, for the chest-pounding and the shakiness.

It doesn’t come.

Huh.

He rubs at his wrists and then stops doing it when he sees that Bobby is watching the movement closely. The last thing he wants is for Bobby to notice the ligature marks around his wrists from when Cas tied him to the bed for round number five. 

Dean licks at his lips and tries not to smile as he remembers. He had a lot of fun with Cas today, and not just in bed, although the fucking was pretty goddamn spectacular. He and Cas just seem to get each other and they’d slotted together as if they’d known each other for a long time. Dean even found himself thinking that Sammy would like him and he’s never gone there before; never dared to imagine that a guy could be anything more than meat; a quick fuck and then they’re done. He’s only spent one night and one day with Cas and it’s opened a door in Dean’s mind that he’s always kept firmly shut. Imagining that someday he could have something truly intimate with a guy, something more than just a meaningless release, hasn’t brought about the panic he anticipated it would. Rather, it’s helping him to breathe easily for the first time in far too long.

Dean takes a deep breath. He’s nervous about talking to Sammy, sure. But he believes in his brother. He doesn’t honestly believe he’s going to have to kill him. Still, he is having his first cigarette craving since he met Cas at the bar last night. 

“Is he around?” Dean asks Bobby.

Bobby and Rufus share a significant look. “Yeah,” Bobby says. “Ain’t been outta his room all day.”

Dean nods. “I’ll finish my coffee and then I’ll go up and see him. Get this talk over with.”

He takes his coffee out to the porch and lights up, which is probably a bad move because Sammy hates him smoking. He actually quit almost a year ago, due to his brother’s nagging, but he’d taken the habit back up again a week or so back, thanks to the stress of his dad’s death and the dying words he’d laid on Dean’s shoulders. 

_You may have to kill him._

Fuck that. Dean would rather put a bullet in his own brain. 

Dean stubs out his finished smoke and counts the cigarettes left in the pack. There are six. Dean promises himself that he won’t buy another pack once these are gone and then he goes inside, washes his hands and gargles and then he makes Sammy a cheese toastie and cup of coffee and goes upstairs.

Sam’s sitting on his bed, reading some colorful looking paperback that’s as thick as a phone book. He looks up and frowns when Dean barges in.

“Sorry I didn’t knock,” Dean says cheerfully. “I could barely get the knob with all this in my hands.”

He gives Sam the coffee and the toastie and his brother looks genuinely touched.

“Thanks, Dean.”

Dean perches on the edge of Sam’s bed and watches as he drinks down half the coffee and then gets stuck into the toastie. 

“Didn’t realize how hungry I was,” he glances up at Dean from beneath his bangs. “So. You didn’t come home last night.”

Dean grins lewdly and waggles his eyebrows. “I found me some company, Sammy. And let’s just say that a good time was had by all.”

“Huh,” Sam says.

“What does that mean, _huh?_ ” Dean raises his eyebrows.

“Well,” Sam puts his now empty plate on the night stand. “It’s just…don’t think I haven’t noticed your occasional judicious use of and/or avoidance of pronouns when talking about your hook-ups.”

Dean frowns. “My avoidance of the what now?”

Sam reaches out and pushes up the sleeve of Dean’s jacket. “Did a _woman_ do this to you, Dean?”

Dean tugs his sleeve down and punches his brother’s shoulder. “So what if I like kinky women?”

Sam presses his lips together. “If sometimes it wasn’t women, I wouldn’t care, you know.”

Dean looks at Sam, really _looks_ at him, and sees the honest sincerity in his eyes. 

“I know you wouldn’t, Sammy.” 

It’s the most he can admit right now, but he can see that Sam understands. He finds himself thinking—again—just how much Sam and Cas would get along, but that’s really a thought for another time. Right now he needs to get this fucked up conversation out of the way.

He sighs and looks away before meeting Sam’s eyes again. “We gotta talk man,” he says. 

Sam takes a shuddering breath and runs a hand through his hair. “Well I know how much you love talking, so this must be serious.”

Dean doesn’t think he imagines the slight waver in his brother’s voice.

“It’s Family stuff,” Dean’s never minded talking business, it’s only touchy-feely chick flick conversations that he likes to avoid.

Sam nods, his brow furrowed.

“Dad was worried about you,” Dean begins.

Sam cuts him off with a snort. “He was worried I was gonna turn rat.”

“He was worried you were in over your head,” Dean corrects. “Look, I ain’t a poster child for healthy living and neither was Dad, and most of the crew are pretty much functional alcoholics, it’s just the way it is in our line of work. But hard drugs are a whole other ball game.”

“I know, Dean,” Sam says, his eyes puppy dog wide.

Dean shakes his head impatiently. “It’s a slippery slope, man. Illegal drugs are a big part of our revenue. It’s one thing for the dealers out on the street to be users, we make them buy the stashes they sell. But if the people at the top of the supply chain are addicts, then we get problems. Profits suffer. We have to shoot people in the head and bury them in concrete for stealing from us. It ain’t fun.”

“I’m not stealing,” Sam says. “I’m buying.”

Dean wrinkles his nose. “Yeah. But not from us. I’m sure you can appreciate how bad that looks. My own brother, buying from the competition.”

Sam’s hiding behind his bangs again and when he looks up his expression is so hangdog that Dean almost expects him to start whimpering like a puppy. 

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

Dean pats his brother’s thigh. “I know you are. And we will fix this. But you’re gonna have to be honest with me. What are you really on?”

Sam chews at his bottom lip and then tells Dean that what he told their dad was true, he started taking Speed to help him cope with the workload of his pre-law course. Everybody was doing it; it didn’t seem like a big deal. Sam’s old roommate Brady knew a guy who knew a guy and he was the one who supplied Sam, Jess and Becky with the Speed. The other guy in their study group, Luis, was anti-drugs and slowly started to drift away from them, but Becky’s younger brother Zach soon took his place in their study circle and he was only too happy to start popping pills. 

And then the price started going up. 

Eventually they started looking for an alternative supplier and that was when Zach was arrested for his girlfriend Emily’s murder. 

Sam looks up at Dean with tears in his eyes. “It was a set up. Brady told us it was a warning, that we couldn’t change supplier; that we had to pay whatever they said. That’s when I found out that Brady was connected to The Devil’s Own.”

Sam runs a hand a across his face. “I should’ve called Dad straight away, but…you know how it went down when I left to go to college. He told me to stay gone and--”

“You could’ve called me, man.”

“Would you have picked up?”

“You know I would’ve. You were the one dodging _my_ calls. Eventually I figured you just wanted a clean break. That the last thing you wanted was your brother-the-criminal reminding you where you came from.”

Sam shakes his head. “I just didn’t want to make things difficult between you and Dad. And I didn’t want some smartass FBI agent to start thinking they could somehow get to you through me. I thought if it looked like we didn’t have any contact, everyone would just leave me alone. Pretty stupid, huh?”

Dean thinks that, yeah, it was pretty stupid. There’s only one way out of the life and that’s in a body bag, but he doesn’t have the heart to tell his little brother that.

“Nah,” he says, “you were just hoping too hard for a better future. You took your eye off the fact that your past…who you are…is always gonna be a danger to you and the people you let close to you.”

Sam nods, shamefaced. He looks like he’s struggling not to cry. “I tried to get the money together for The Devil’s Own. Hustling pool, poker games. It was never enough. They told me that if I agreed to become their mole and helped them to fuck up the Winchester Family from the inside, they’d forgive the debt. I told them to go fuck themselves, so they firebombed the apartment and killed Jess.”

“And I came as soon as I heard,” Dean says. “And brought you home.”

The first few weeks were bad. Sam was a wreck, blaming himself for Jess’s death, muttering that he should’ve done something sooner. Dean had thought that Sam was feeling guilty because his Family connections had made Jess a target, but now he sees that Sam’s guilt is much more direct than that.

“I tried to quit once I was home,” Sam says. “But I got real sick; nausea; hot and cold sweats; hallucinations. Then I heard that Becky was in a psychiatric hospital, that she went kind of nuts after trying to quit. And that’s when I knew that whatever they’d been giving us, it wasn’t just Speed. I went and saw Nick Morningstar; demanded to know what else was in the pills they’d been supplying us,” Sam’s expression sours. “He wouldn’t tell me, just said that if I didn’t want to die or become psychotic, I’d have to be his inside man. He gave me a couple weeks supply and told me he’d come to me with a task.”

Dean’s stomach drops. “It’s just as well I know you,” he says, his voice coming out strange and flat. “I know you’d never betray your family, but I can see why Dad told me we might have to shoot you.”

“What?” Sam scoots backward on the bed and look like he’s getting ready to flee or fight. “He actually said that? He actually believed I’d turned rat?”

“It was the last thing the old man said to me. Save Sammy. But if you can’t, if he’s turned rat, you’ll have to kill him.”

Sam does cry then. The kid’s been keeping so many secrets in a world where secrets can get you killed. It must be a relief to have it all out in the open, even the fact that his own Dad was preparing to execute him if necessary. Dean ain’t ashamed to say there are a few tears on his own cheeks as he holds his little brotherly tightly.

When Sam calms down, Dean asks him what happened next and Sam tells him that he went to one of his friends from Stanford, a Chemistry major, and had her analyse the drug that The Devil’s Own had been dosing him with. 

“Bottom line? It’s Speed mixed with some other kind of stimulant. Coming off of it will be dangerous and it could kill me or leave me psychotic like Becky. But Madison was able to replicate the drug and she was supplying me until she got shot through the heart, just a couple days before Dad died.” Sam wipes at his eyes. “So there’s another friend I got killed. And I don’t know, maybe them coming after you was about me too, you know?”

Dean shrugs. “If your friend managed to replicate the drug, I’m sure that Ash can too.”

Sam nods. “I can give him the formula, Madison gave it to me.”

Dean fixes his gaze on Sam. “You’re gonna have to get clean though. You know that, right?”

Sam looks away. “Yeah. It might kill me, but…long term, so might the drug. I’ve gotta take the risk. Short term, if we can manufacture the drug for me, then I’m not in danger of being beholden to The Devil’s Own.”

Dean clears his throat. “Yeah. And short term, I gotta make some decisions about running the Family. Bobby and Rufus are downstairs, pushing me to pick my team. I’m gonna make Bobby my Consigliere, so I’m gonna need a new underboss.”

Sam nods again. “Right,” he says. “Good luck. I’ll let you get back to it.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Dude, seriously? There ain’t no one I trust to have my back more than you. We make a great team, Sammy.”

“What?” Sam says blankly.

“I’m choosing you, dipstick. I want you to be my _capo bastone._ ”

“Oh,” Sam says. “Really? Wow.”

Momentary uncertainty hits Dean head on. “You do…want that, right?”

Sam pulls him into a hug. “There’s nothing I want more. You and me against the world, keeping our territory safe from the Demons. I’ve got so many ideas I want to run past you, Dean.”

Dean can’t help the smile that splits his face. “C’mon then. Let’s go and show those two old timers downstairs how this job should be done.”

\--  
The next couple of weeks are busy for Dean. The Devil’s Own test his mettle, just as he’d expected, by going after every business in town that is under the Winchesters’ protection. Dean and his crew finally rack up enough of a Demon body count that the attacks stop, but by then the whole State is nervously talking about an impending mob war. Dean even has to front up and talk to Sheriff Jody Mills about it. 

Jody’s all right in Dean’s book. Yes, she’s law enforcement, but she understands that the law can’t always deliver justice. Dean and Bobby helped her out a few years back when The Devil’s Own slaughtered her husband and son in retribution for a couple of their members being sent to prison. As far as Dean is concerned, getting locked up is an occupational hazard for a gangster and if you can’t stand the heat, you don’t belong in the business. It’s also against The Winchesters’ moral code to go after kids, so even if Jody’s son Owen hadn’t been good friends with Lisa’s son Ben, Dean would’ve been willing to help out when the man charged with the murders was found not guilty because all the witnesses suddenly lost their memories and all the physical evidence suddenly went missing. With John’s approval, Dean and Bobby made sure he received justice anyway, and now they have an LEO who owes them. 

Jody appreciates that there are lines the Winchesters won’t cross, that they do their best to keep the drugs and the street trade clean and the gang violence to a minimum. Dean likes Jody a lot and tentatively considers her a friend. He’s made it clear to her that he doesn’t have anything on her and he respects the fact that she has a job to do. He just wants her to be aware of all the shades of grey and to be willing to talk to the Winchesters if there’s anything causing a problem in the territory that they consider theirs. 

“We’re handling it,” he tells Jody tersely and she gives him her Mom look. 

Dean scrubs a hand over his face. “Don’t make me incriminate myself, Sheriff. We _are_ handling it. This is just them testing things out now that my old man’s bought it.”

Jody purses her lips. “I don’t know, Dean,” she says. “It feels like they’re building up to something. There’s been a lot more violence and some of the Demons we’ve arrested, they seem like they’re hopped up on something. Like Ice only worse. Do you know anything about a new street drug?” 

Dean shakes his head and promises to ask around, see what he can find out.

Jody nods. She finishes off her coffee, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and then asks, “So what’s with this…garrison…of Santangelos that I hear are hanging around in Kansas City?”

Dean bites back a snarky response and manages not to pull a face. “Michael’s idea of helping to ‘smooth over’ the transition. He thought it might help on the Demon front if they stuck around for a while.”

Jody raises an eyebrow. 

“Yeah,” Dean sighs. “I know. Given Morningstar’s history with them, he’s definitely seeing it as a provocation.”

“Maybe you could have a word with Michael about that?” Jody says delicately.  
“Yeah,” Dean says. “Okay.”  
Of course it’s not that simple. Michael Santangelo is back in Los Angeles and whenever Dean tries to get through to him, he just gets directed to Zachariah instead, the guy charged with heading up the small contingent of Family that Michael left in Kansas. It’s frustrating, to say the least. Zachariah is a giant, pompous douchebag.

Dean sees Jody out to the porch where her deputy, Donna Hanscum is waiting with Sam. 

Sammy is wearing a sour look and the smile he gives Lawrence’s finest as they depart doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Don’t tell me,” Dean says, “she gave you the ‘what’s a fine upstanding Stanford graduate like yourself doing in a Crime Family?’ talk.”

Sam grimaces. “Yeah. And then she went on and on about the new sugared donuts down at the Pie Shack.”

Dean brightens. “I had a couple of those the other day. They’re awesome.” 

Sam scowls.

“Oh come on, spoil sport. Just because you like to eat rabbit food all the time.”

Sam sighs. “You’re a heart attack waiting to happen, Dean.”

Dean could make a snarky comment about Sam’s Speed addiction, but then Sam would probably start in on him about his smoking (he’s trying to quit again, honest, but it’s _hard_ ) and his drinking (he’s cut down to six standard drinks a day), so he doesn’t, he just shrugs.

Ash, the guy who runs the Winchesters’ meth labs, had no trouble recreating the drug that The Devil’s Own had gotten Sammy addicted to. The mystery stimulant that’s been added to the amphetamine is somewhat similar to PCP, but not entirely like anything Ash has ever seen before. 

In light of Jody’s concerns about a new street drug, Dean and Sam head down to the main lab to ask him some questions.

“Yo dudes,” Ash says when the Winchester brothers walk in. “I’ve been playing around with the chemical formula you gave me. Exciting stuff. In small quantities, mixed with an amphetamine, the other stimulant is barely noticeable. But,” he pulls a small baggie out of a drawer. “I created a batch that was straight up the new stimulant and check it out!” 

Sam and Dean peer at the baggie of reddish-brown powder and then Dean shoots Ash a puzzled look. Ash opens the bag and Dean smells sulphur. 

“Smell that?” Ash says excitedly.

“Yeah,” Dean shrugs. “Don’t know what it means.”

Ash licks his lips and looks around furtively. “We’ve been hearing rumors about The Devil’s Own having a powerful new drug, one they’re keeping to themselves, only letting their foot soldiers take it. Apparently it’s an injectable. Looks like blood. Smells like sulphur.”

Ash pours some of the powder out of the baggie and into a petri dish. He mixes it with a little water and then lights a Bunsen burner underneath it. The mixture thickens and bubbles and when it’s done it looks exactly like blood. The sulphur smell is strong. 

“I tested it on that rat you brought me. Almost straight away, his pupils dilated so much that you couldn’t see anything but black—it was really creepy, man—and then he got super strong and really violent. In its pure form, the drug is highly addictive and going through withdrawal killed the rat. But the doses you’ve been getting, Sam, are much smaller, so when you’re ready quitting’s gonna be hard, but doable. Uh…Sam?”

Dean turns to his brother and sees that Sammy is breathing hard and sweating too. He’s staring, transfixed at the dish of thick red liquid. 

“Sammy?” Dean puts a hand to his arm. 

Sam startles and then swallows. “I’ve gotta get outta here,” he says and backs away fast, before turning and almost running out of the lab.

Dean follows his rapidly retreating back with a worried frown.

“Highly addictive,” Ash says. “Morningstar would’ve been slowly increasing the dose, hoping to eventually move him onto the pure stuff. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to him that another chemist would be able to re-create it and take away his control.”

Dean has his own theories about that. He thinks Nick Morningstar wanted to isolate Sammy; kill his girl, kill his brother; leave him with a father who was suspicious of him, so that Sam would keep his addiction to himself. He hadn’t counted on Sam having a friend at Stanford who could help him and he hadn’t counted on John Winchester throwing himself in front of a bullet meant for Dean, nor for Dean’s unwavering love, trust and loyalty toward Sam.

“So about this new stimulant drug,” Dean begins.

“I’m calling it Demon Blood,” Ash says.

Dean blinks. “Right. So about this, uh, Demon Blood…is Sammy gonna need more and more of it to get the same feeling?”

Ash nods. “Yeah. So the sooner we get him de-toxed, the better.”

Sam’s waiting for him outside.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he looks it.

“It’s okay,” Dean tells him.

Sam shakes his head. “I don’t take it to get high, you know that right? I’ve never taken it for the high. It’s always been about helping me concentrate better, think better, stay focused, so that I could do my studies better. Now, I just take it so that I won’t get sick.”

Dean nods. “I hear you, little brother. I get it.”

Sam sighs. “Are you sure choosing me to be your underboss was a good idea?”

Dean turns to face him and lets the confidence he has in his brother show in his eyes. “Yeah, I am. There’s no one on this planet I trust as much as I trust you.”

Sam smiles briefly and then turns serious again. “Gordon thinks it’s a mistake. Thinks I’m a danger to the Family. And he’s not the only one.”

Dean shrugs like he doesn’t care. He does care, but only because it pisses him off that there are people in his Crew who obviously don’t trust his judgement. “It’s not up to them, it’s up to me. And if we have to deal with them, we will.”

Sam sighs again, but he nods and settles into the passenger seat of ol’ blue. 

Dean drives them back to Bobby’s and then spends some quality time out in the yard, fixing up his Baby and apologizing to her for the lousy way he treated her. He’s been working on her a little every couple of days and she’s almost ready to get back on the road. He sure is looking forward to sliding behind her wheel again.

Dean has also been heading into Kansas City every couple of days, mostly to do the rounds of the various crew bosses out there, to show support, and help instil confidence where needed. If he also happens to hook up with Cas while he’s there, well, that was nobody’s business but his own.

He and Cas have a tacit understanding that their day-to-day personal lives are off limits, but they discuss everything else; music (Dean likes classic rock, Cas likes opera), movies (Dean likes funny movies and movies where shit blows up, Cas likes movies where shit blows up too, but also arthouse movies in foreign languages), books (they both agree that Chuck Palahniuk, Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams are awesome), politics (Dean doesn’t vote, Cas is a Democrat and is horrified that Dean doesn’t vote), favorite foods (they both love burgers and Italian food) and sport (Dean likes most sport, Cas is surprisingly passionate about fencing). 

They don’t talk about work or their families. Not much anyway. Cas knows that Dean has a little brother who went to Stanford. Dean knows that Cas is the second youngest in a very large family. Dean also knows that Cas is under pressure from said family to take a job in one of their businesses, but he’s adamant that he’s not going to. He got really testy talking about it too, so Dean figures it’s a sore point, best left well alone. It’s not like he’s all that keen to talk about his own family’s businesses, so it’s a lot easier if that’s a topic that stays strictly in the out of bounds area.

This thing with Cas is just about good sex. With a guy he likes enough to keep coming back to. All those stupid fantasies he keeps having about having a _relationship_ with Cas, about Cas being his _boyfriend_ are just that; fantasies. Stupid ones. Fantasies that he needs to nip in the bud before he tries to do something really insane like turn them into realities. Dean squirms at the thought.

“Stay still,” Cas says, frowning down at him.

Dean would apologize except that he’s gagged with one of Cas’s ties. He’s not tied down though. They discovered; the fourth time they hooked up; that as much as Dean enjoys being restrained, he enjoys holding position through his own strength of will much more. Like, right now, he’s on his back, spreadeagled in the middle of Cas’s bed (with a pillow under his hips) and the only thing keeping his arms and legs spread wide is the fact that Cas wants him like this and Dean wants to give him what he wants. Also, having something so immediate to focus on usually helps stop his mind from wandering and he’d rather be concentrating on holding position for Cas than worrying about Sammy’s forthcoming detox or the handful of his crew who have been vocal in their disapproval of Sam’s elevation to his second in command. Or—

_Sonofabitch_! Dean glares at Cas, his inner thigh stinging where Cas just slapped it, hard.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Cas says mildly. “I’m obviously going to have to step up my game.” 

He turns the prostate massager up to its highest setting and presses it right against Dean’s sweet spot. Dean arches like a bow and pretty soon he’s a sweaty, glassy-eyed drooling mess, his cock steadily leaking and his hands fisted in the sheets as he begs from behind his gag for Cas to take the cock ring off and let him come. Instead, Cas flips him over and presses into him, fucking in deep a couple of times before reaching around and sliding off the cock ring. Cas has barely had time to touch him, just a couple of jerks and a wrist twist, and Dean is coming hard. He groans and then his arms turn into limp noodles and he collapses onto the mattress, right on top of the wet spot. He pulls a face and swears under his breath and then settles down to enjoy Cas thoroughly reaming his ass until Cas’s hips stutter to a stop as he comes too. 

They end up in the shower and then Dean decides that he needs a cigarette. Cas keeps telling him that smoking is a disgusting habit and Dean keeps telling him that he’s quitting. It’s…different, having a regular hook-up who’s prepared to take a stand on things he doesn’t like. Of course, all his other regular hook-ups are women who know who he is, but Dean is finding that he likes having a partner who’ll stand up to him outside, as well as inside, the bedroom. 

Dean goes out into the grounds of the apartment complex and lights up, compulsively counting his remaining cigarettes. Despite his resolution a couple weeks back, he didn’t manage to just smoke the six that were left in the pack and then quit. But this is the only pack he’s bought since. Personally, Dean thinks he’s doing great, only smoking two or three cigarettes a day. He leans against the bank of mailboxes and takes his time, enjoying the nicotine hit. 

When Dean makes it back inside, Cas is talking on his cell phone.

“For the last time,” he hears Cas say, the irritation clear in his tone, “I refuse to be involved.”

He sees Dean and frowns, his mouth a grim line, and then he turns his back on Dean and starts speaking in Italian.

Dean knows, from that time when Cas tried to get him to watch some boring arthouse movie, that Cas speaks several languages. Dean admires people who are multi-lingual and it pisses him off when assholes make fun of people who speak English with an accent. It just means they can speak more than one language and that’s not something to be ashamed of. 

Dean knows how he comes across to others—a red-blooded American boy from the wrong side of the tracks who only speaks English and Bad English—and truthfully, it’s an image he cultivates. It can be very enlightening when people underestimate you. 

Like now, for example.

He listens to Cas’s side of the conversation, his heart pounding faster and faster as he begins to put together the fragments of information. He’s coming up with a picture he isn’t sure he likes.

When Cas ends his call and turns around, he at least looks apologetic. And worried, when he takes in Dean’s expression, which Dean imagines isn’t pretty.

“That was rude,” Dean tells Cas.

Cas holds his gaze for a moment and then sags visibly.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

Dean licks at his lips. If he was smart, he’d turn around right now and walk away. If he’s put things together right, this—Cas—is a complication he doesn’t need. Walking away is going to hurt though. His heart’s involved now and getting shot through the heart—even if it ain’t literally, is painful. This is bad.

Or maybe.

Maybe this could be useful.

Dean crosses to the sofa and sits, his legs spread and his elbows resting on his knees. He stares at the floor and starts to plan out what he’s going to say, how he’s going to approach this.

“Dean, I--” Cas begins, but Dean cuts him off.

“We never exchanged surnames, did we?”

Cas is suddenly very quiet and very still.

“My Dad’s dad; my paternal grandfather; died when my dad was just a kid,” Dean says. “I think my grandmother would’ve kept my dad out of the Life if she could’ve, but being who she was, and my dad’s Godfather being who he was, that was never gonna happen.”

Dean glances up at Cas who swallows visibly, his eyes wide.

“After our mom was murdered, my grandmother wanted me and Sammy to go live with her, but dad wouldn’t allow it. He dragged us around behind him and I guess it wasn’t the most stable way to grow up, but on the other hand there’s a lotta people out there who had a hand in raising us. They’re loyal now, because they’re family. Truly family. And they know I’m loyal to them,” Dean pauses and looks up at Cas again. Cas’s face is pinched and his breathing is shaky. “Don’t get me wrong,” he says, “we still saw a lot of our grandmother, spent time with her. She made sure we could speak the language. I guess you could say it was _cosa nostra_.”

Cas sinks to the floor.

“Before she married Henry Winchester,” Dean hears Cas make a pained sound, “our Nonna was Maria Cacciatore.”

“Fuck my life,” Cas says in a surprisingly strong voice.

Dean can’t help laughing. “Right back at you, pal. You were supposed to be a casual fuck buddy, with no connection to my fucked up life.”

Cas meets his eyes, his expression fierce. “Believe me when I tell you I would rather that connection did not exist.”

Cas looks every inch the righteous soldier he spent the last decade of his life being, and Dean believes him. 

“So,” Dean says, “Given that you’re Polish-American _among other things_ , I’m guessing the _Italian mama_ you were just speaking to on the phone is a Santangelo by birth?”

Cas nods. “Naomi.”

Dean’s eyes widen. “No shit? Michael’s your _brother_?”

“Half-brother. Mama married her second cousin Carlo Santangelo when she was eighteen and they had Michael, Ezekiel, Rachel, Gabriel and Anna. When Carlo was killed, Mama married his underboss, James Novak, and they had Hannah, then me and Jimmy and then Alfie.”

Dean whistles. “You said you had a big family.”

Cas’s smile is bitter. “We Novak kids never really got along with our Santangelo half-siblings,” he inclines his head. “Gabriel and Anna were always good to us, but the older three considered us far inferior. As far as my full siblings are concerned, Hannah is married and producing the next generation as expected of a good mob wife; Jimmy,” Cas’s voice falters, “joined the family business voluntarily and was shot dead while I was away at college,” he swallows. “And Alfie moved to New York and got a job at Weiner Hut. He’s the baby, so he can get away with that. I hear he’s doing well.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean says. He vaguely remembers hearing something about one of Michael’s brothers getting caught in the crossfire during a gun battle between Michael’s faction, who run the West Coast, and Bartholemew’s faction, who ran the East Coast before Michael wiped them out. 

“Yeah,” Cas is still wearing the same bitter smile. “It’s hard to know who to be pissed at when Jimmy was killed because of our own infighting,” he shakes his head. “It only solidified my conviction that I was doing the right thing, getting out. I’m not a rat, I would never inform on them to the authorities, but I don’t want any part in the world that got my twin brother killed.”

Dean winces. He hadn’t realized Jimmy was Cas’s twin. That’s gotta hurt.

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

Cas shrugs. “It bought me a little understanding; they’ve let me go my own way without too much fuss. Not that they could do much while I was posted overseas. But now that I’m home again…” he trails off with a scowl. “I chose Kansas because the Cacciatores are a friendly Family and things with The Devil’s Own have been well in hand here for a good twenty years. And then, not only does everything suddenly blow up and cause Michael to leave a garrison here; I also accidentally start fucking Dean Winchester, the new Winchester _Capo_ ,” he looks up at Dean, his expression both determined and imploring. “It’s over between us, I get that. And I swear I won’t tell anyone. This looks just as bad for me as it does for you and besides, Michael is very anti-gay. Coming out to the Family would have got me off the hook as far as being involved in the Family Business was concerned, but Michael may have had me executed on principal. So I won’t ever tell anyone, I promise.”

Dean has to admit, he’s shocked when he realizes Cas is scared Dean might kill him. 

Also, he’s not sure he wants this thing with Cas to be over.

“Why _did_ Michael leave a garrison here?” Dean asks, because maybe Cas has some insider perspective.

Cas shrugs. “Just making sure you can handle things, I guess.”

Dean harrumphs. “He’s gotta realize it’s just fuel to the fire as far as Nick Morningstar’s concerned. I mean, Nick is Carlo Santangelo’s oldest kid, the one he had with his mistress, which is why it’s Michael not Nick heading up the Family. Anything to do with the Santangelos pisses Nick off. Putting a garrison here is just making him fight me even harder.”

“Dean!” Cas is suddenly looming over him. “Are you going to try and kill me or not?”

Dean blinks up at him. “No,” he says. “Of course, I’m not. Don’t see why what we’re doing has to end, either.”

Cas tilts his head and looks adorably perplexed. 

“We’re good together,” Dean explains. “Neither of us is ever going to want to get married and adopt kids or whatever. We share a background that ain’t all that common, which is probably why we understand each other so well. Why give that up?”

Cas plops down on the sofa beside Dean and raises an eyebrow. “Because it could get us killed?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “I do ten things a day that could get me killed. None of them are as much fun as getting pounded by you.”

Cas’s eyes darken. “Is that a fact?”

“Yeah. And I don’t do chick flick moments for anyone, but apparently I do them for you,” he runs his hands over his chest. “Tell me I didn’t just grow tits?” 

“I better take a closer look,” Cas murmurs and Dean puts a hand to Cas’s chest to halt his forward momentum. “Steady there, soldier. We gotta talk.”

Cas sits back and waits. Dean rubs a hand over his chin and tries to decide how to put his request.

“Something ain’t kosher,” he says finally. “And you think that too. I heard what you said on the phone about your Uncle Zach and I’m surprised your Mama didn’t come down here to wash your mouth out.”

Cas barks out a short laugh. “Yeah. Well. That might still happen.”

“So,” Dean says, “I think you should take that job with your Uncle. I think you should find out what’s going on and I think you should tell me.”

Cas is statue still, his face hard like marble. “You want me to turn rat?”

“No,” Dean says patiently. “I want you to work with me and Sammy on keeping this town safe. Because I’m starting to think that somebody _wants_ a mob war. And they’re trying to manipulate me and Nick into starting one.”


	4. Chapter Three

The Winchester brothers walk into The Roadhouse side-by-side, their shoulders touching and their strides matched. Dean doesn’t think he imagines the abrupt drop in hubbub that greets their arrival, because he feels Sammy tense beside him.

“Damn,” Sam murmurs out of the corner of his mouth. “It’s Topeka High all over again.”

Dean snorts. 

He’d been in his senior year when Dad had dragged them to a safe house in Topeka. Their second week at the local high school, they’d walked into the Cafeteria at lunch time—side-by-side—and the entire room had fallen silent. Somehow, word had got around that they were the sons of a powerful mob boss. Dean had played up to it, enjoying the notoriety. Sam had hated it.

Dean signals Ellen to bring them a couple of beers and they make their way to a booth. Once they’ve settled into it, the general hubbub starts back up again and Dean gives his brother a wry smile.

“So,” he says to Ellen when she comes across with two bottles of Budweiser and two glasses balanced on a round black tray. “What have the mean girls at the popular table been saying about us?”

Ellen huffs out a laugh and shakes her head. “Ain’t nothing,” she says. “Just Gordon and Kubrick with their usual pissin’ and moanin’.”

But her lips thin and her eyes slide sideways to Sam when she says it, so Dean has a pretty good idea what it is that Gordon and Kubrick are pissing and moaning about. And so does Sam if the way his shoulders slump are any indication.

As soon as Ellen leaves, Sam starts.

“Dean,” he begins, but Dean cuts him off.

“I’m not having this conversation with you again, Sam. I chose you to be my second. Anybody doesn’t respect my decisions can go fuck themselves.”

Sam nods. “I get that, I do. But maybe the problem is that Dad had me pretty much benched when he was in charge, and you’ve mostly had me hacking police and FBI databases. It’s been a while since anyone saw me in action.”

Dean scoffs. “If they don’t remember you driving getaway cars at fifteen, hell, _fourteen_ years old, if they don’t remember you earning your bones when you were _seventeen_ ,” Sam winces at the reminder of his first kill, “then that is their problem.”

“I’m just saying,” Sam says evenly, “that I can see where they’re coming from. A lot of these guys, they don’t trust me anymore, they think going to college made me lose my edge. And maybe they think you don’t fully trust me either, the way you’re keeping me mostly in the background.”

Dean has to concede that Sam has a point. He can see how it might look to outsiders.

Still, he shakes his head. “You’ve got valuable skills that not many of our people have. Any bozo can break heads. Not many people can hack the FBI database.”

Sam studies the condensation dripping down his beer with intensity.

“But,” Dean says. Sam’s head comes up. “Maybe we need to give them a demonstration,” he looks across to where Gordon and Kubrick are holding court over by the pool tables. “Feel like playing a little pool, Sammy?”

Sam looks across to the pool tables. “It’ll have to be Gordon,” he says. “He’s the leader of the pack.”

Dean nods his agreement. “You can take him, little brother. I have faith in you.”

\--

Sam learned a lot at Stanford, Dean’s prepared to concede that. One thing he learned was how to be an arrogant, condescending dick. Although, he was actually pretty good at that even before he went to college; college just seems to have refined his talents. It’s good though, watching someone else being on the receiving end of College Boy’s epic, condescending dickishness and Dean’s not going to lie, he’s enjoying watching the vein in Gordon’s neck throb furiously.

It only takes one more patronising comment for Gordon to take a swing. Sam ducks and dances around behind the bigger man and manages to get him in a headlock. Gordon doesn’t know when to cry Uncle, he’s stubborn that way, and Dean’s crew gets to watch him pass out, Sam holding him tightly, squeezing his neck and refusing to let go. 

Gordon pisses himself as Sam lowers his unconscious body to the floor. Dean checks his pulse and shakes his head. 

“He’s gonna have a sore throat for a couple weeks, but he’ll be okay,” he turns and surveys the silent crowd. “I chose Sam to be my _capo bastone_ because he’s strong and he’s smart. He was born into the Life, and at an age when most of you were still tryin’ to figure out what your dicks were for, Sam was earning his button the old fashioned way. If anyone has anything to say to me about Sam, come say it to my face,” he waits a beat to see if anyone’s going to speak up and when no one does he nods. “You know where to find me. C’mon, Sam.”

Neither of them speaks until they’re half way to Bobby’s house. 

“You think that’ll work?” Sam asks.

Dean shrugs. “I don’t think everyone’s gonna fully trust you until you get clean.”

Sam turns to look at him. Dean keeps his eyes on the road.

“That include you?” Sam asks.

Dean’s tempted to punch in a cassette tape and ignore the question, but he knows he can’t do that.

“I don’t trust The Devil’s Own,” he says. “I don’t trust the shit they put into your body without your knowledge or say so. You, I trust. But I’ll be a lot happier when all of that shit is out of your system.”

Sam nods and Dean feels his defensive posture relax, just a little.

Bobby’s out when they get back to the salvage yard, so Dean snags them a couple bottles of Coors from the fridge and they sit out on the porch, on the ratty old sofa Bobby keeps out there, and watch the stars. Dean lights up, compulsively counting how many cigarettes he’s got left and Sam wrinkles his nose and coughs pointedly.

“I’m down to two a day,” Dean says.

Sam smiles wryly. “Just promise me you’ll stay on my case this hard when I start kicking my habit.”

“Promise,” Dean says. “And speaking of, when’s that gonna be?”

“Not yet. When things are a bit more settled.”

Dean reminds his brother that things are never completely settled in their world. 

“I know,” Sam says. “I just want to be sure there’s not gonna be a coup before I take myself out of action for a while. Can’t have your back if I’m sweating buckets and throwing up in Bobby’s panic room, can I?”

Dean figures his brother has a point. He finishes his cigarette and kind of regrets that the crisp clean mid-west air is now tainted by the bitter stench of tobacco smoke. 

“How are things in Kansas City?” Sam asks.

Dean smirks. “Everything’s up to date in Kansas City.”

Sam snorts. “Show tunes, Dean? Really? I’m embarrassed for you.”

“Hey, you recognized it, Mr Pot.”

Sam’s smile is playful and relaxed, and Dean knows Sam only left Palo Alto because his girl got murdered, but even so, he’s so fucking grateful to have his brother back by his side where he belongs. 

“We both know I was an audio/visual geek in High School,” Sam says. “You did wrestling. So what’s your excuse for knowing Show tunes?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “You did all the technical stuff for _Oklahoma!_ your Senior Year of High School. Dad only let you do it because I agreed to keep an eye on you.”

Sam shoots him an accusing look. “You told me you waited in the car.”

“Like I wanted it to get out that I sat through five performances of _Oklahoma!_ ”

Sam stares at him. “You like musicals,” he says finally.

Dean rolls his eyes but doesn’t correct him. Sam smiles fondly at him and the pleased expression stays on his face far too long for Dean’s liking.

“Quit smiling at me like that,” he grouches. 

He reaches for his pack of Dunhill’s, but Sam gets to them first. “You don’t need one,” he says. “And I know you just tried to derail me when I asked about Kansas City, but I actually had a reason for asking about it.” 

Dean had sort of figured that, which is why he’d attempted to head the conversation off at the pass.

“Are you seeing someone in Kansas City?” Sam asks. “And I don’t mean finding a one night stand, whenever you go up there. I mean _seeing_ seeing.”

Dean thinks about lying, but he kind of doesn’t want to lie. 

“Yeah,” he says, slowly, watching out of the corner of his eye as Sam’s smile brightens. 

There are more words that Dean wants to say, but they lodge themselves in his throat. He clears it and takes a long pull of beer, then clears his throat again. “I’m seeing Cas. A former fighter pilot.”

Sam looks expectant for a moment and then sighs. “And what pronouns does Cas prefer?”

Dean stares. 

“Him? Her? They?” Sam prompts.

Dean clears his throat again. “I’ve never actually asked, but, uh, I guess he’s a he. He has a dick.”

“Will I get to meet him?” 

Dean shifts uncomfortably. “Uh, it’s complicated.”

Sam scoffs. “It’s really not.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “No, it really is. He’s, uh, You know how you went to Stanford because you wanted to get out of, uh, certain elements of the, uh, _Family_ business?”

Sam nods.

“Well Cas is kinda like you. He went into the military to get away from his Family, but now he’s back and they’re kinda pressuring him to get back into the _Family_ business.”

Sam’s gets that inward stare that means he’s sifting through mental data. “Family? As in…? Cas. Cas? Not…Holy shit. Not Castiel Novak? Naomi Santangelo’s son?”

Dean imagines his face looks pretty sheepish. “I guess I should pay more attention to the background briefings, huh? I know the main players, obviously, but Cas’s been out of it so long, and we were both, you know, keeping it on the down low, so no surnames. It took us both a few weeks to put it together.”

Sam sniggers. “So are you Romeo or Juliet?”

Dean very succinctly tells his brother to go fuck himself. “Besides,” he adds. “The Santangelos are meant to be on our side.”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Meant to be.”

Dean’s expression sharpens. “You got something you wanna share with the class, Sammy?”

Sam shrugs. “Nothing concrete. Just. Feels like we’re being railroaded into a fight with The Devil’s Own. I just don’t understand _why_.”

Dean doesn’t tell his brother that he’s got Cas digging around at the Santangelo end on that very subject, but he’s pleased to hear his brother echoing his own concerns. It makes him feel less paranoid. 

Dean shoots the breeze with his brother for a while longer. They have a couple more beers and then move on to the whiskey. It’s the most down time they’ve had together in a while and, as Sam heads on up to bed looking happier and less stressed than he’s looked in a while, Dean realizes that his little brother needed this. 

Dean sighs. What _he_ needs is for Cas to pin him down and fuck him through the mattress. His head’s a pretty dark place a lot of the time and nothing helps Dean manage it quite as effectively as Cas holding him down and giving it to him good. Unfortunately, that ain’t something that’s likely to happen in the near future because Cas is now working for the Santangelos and they’ve agreed to keep their distance until he’s figured out what’s going on. 

Dean misses him. And if he’s honest about it, he doesn’t just miss the fucking. He misses Cas’s dry sense of humor, his tendency to be stupidly literal and the way that pop culture references go right over his head. He misses the arguments they have over movies and music and he misses Cas’s intelligence, the way he can get Dean to think about things differently without ever coming across like a patronizing know-it-all. 

Dean watches as headlights bounce their way up the driveway. Bobby gets out carrying a plate covered over with saran wrap. 

“Is that one of Marcy Ward’s peach cobblers?” Dean asks. “Bobby, you sly dog.”

“Shut up,” Bobby says as he comes up the front steps.

“Does Ellen know you’re catting around on her?” Dean teases.

Bobby scowls. “Well that’s rich coming from you. Besides, me and Ellen ain’t a thing. We just spend time together sometimes.”

“Uh huh. Just don’t forget that Ellen keeps a shot gun behind the bar.”

Bobby rolls his eyes. He heads inside and Dean hears him open a cupboard. He’s back out a moment later with a glass and Dean picks up the bottle of Jim Beam that’s on the floor beside the sofa and pours him a generous serve.

“Speaking of _The Roadhouse_ ,” Bobby says, “I called in there on the way home.”

“With the scent of another woman’s perfume still clinging to you? That was _brave_ of you.”

Bobby smacks him upside the head, which Dean has to concede he probably deserved.

“Talked to Roy and Walt. They were none too happy. Said Kubrick had to take Gordon home because Sam damn near took his head off.”

Dean smirks. “It was a thing of beauty, Bobby. Sam sure hasn’t lost his touch. He literally made Gordon piss his pants.”

Bobby lights up a fat cigar and takes a few puffs. “You sure that was wise?” 

Dean snorts and tips back the remainder of his whiskey. “Hey, I’m a wise guy.”

Bobby shakes his head. “According to Roy, there’s quite a number in the crew think that Sam’s a loose cannon. People know about this so-called Demon Blood. They think Sam’s tainted. A liability. And the way he bested Gordon today, people are saying he’s got super strength because of the Demon Blood that The Devil’s Own drugged him with. They’re saying he can’t be trusted.”

Dean stares at his Consigliere. “And what do you say, Bobby?”

Bobby takes a slow measured sip of whiskey. “I say we gotta get him de-toxed as soon as possible. Then we can be sure that he’s not compromised.”

“That’s always been the plan,” Dean says. “As soon as things settle--”

Bobby cuts him off. “No. Now. Tomorrow. No more excuses. We do it first thing.”

\--

Bobby makes eggs and sausage for breakfast. Dean’s already on his third cup of strong black coffee when Sam comes yawning downstairs, looking like an extra from a hair metal video clip. 

“Seriously, man,” Dean says. “Just give me five minutes with some clippers.”

“Shut up,” Sam mumbles and heads straight for the coffee pot. 

“I was thinking,” Dean says, when Sam’s half way through his breakfast.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Sam jokes.

“I was _thinking_ ,” Dean reiterates, “that we should start your detox today.”

Sam sits up straight and runs his hands through the bird’s nest of his hair. “What? No. Dean. I thought we agreed that we’d wait until everything was sorted.”

“Everything ain’t never gonna be sorted,” Bobby chimes in. “And we need you, Sam. We need to know for sure that you ain’t compromised.”

Sam’s eyes dart back and forth between them. “I don’t think now’s the right time,” he says. “The drugs keep me sharp and we need that right now. Things will calm down a little and then…then I’ll stop taking them.”

“Okay,” Dean says.

Sam’s brow furrows. “That’s it? Okay? You’re not gonna argue?”

Dean shakes his head. “I trust you, Sammy.”

Sam looks at Bobby who shrugs and turns away to refill his coffee cup. “Ain’t up to me.”

Dean clears his throat. “We do have an important job we gotta do today, though. It’s to do with this whole Demon problem. So how about you go get ready and then meet us back here.”

Dean and Bobby sit silently until the shower starts up and then Bobby says gruffly, “So, plan B, huh?”

“Looks like it,” Dean nods unhappily.

“Has anyone seen my pills?” Sam says later, when he re-joins them in the kitchen.

He’s dressed in jeans and a burgundy button down shirt, his hair is damp and his eyes are twitching.

“Nope,” Dean says.

Sam frowns. “They were beside my bed.”

Dean shrugs.

“C’mon,” Bobby says, standing. “You two knuckleheads can deal with your housekeeping dramas later. I got something down here that you need to see.”

He heads down to his panic room, with Dean and Sam trailing behind him. 

“In here,” Bobby says, pulling open the door and letting Sam go in ahead of him.

Dean hangs back. 

Sam looks around, frowning. The panic room is set up like a cell. 

“What’s going on?” Sam asks. “What’s this got to do with the Demon problem?”

“You’re the Demon problem,” Bobby says and shuts and locks the door.

“Very funny,” Sam shouts from behind the door. “Ha. Ha. Now let me out.”

“Sorry, Sammy,” Dean says. “This is for your own good.”

The next hour is fucking awful. Sammy hammers on the door and yells himself hoarse and Dean sits on the floor outside the panic room and tries not to think about how much he wants a drink and a cigarette, because how hypocritical would that be?

Dean has been steadfastly refusing to move from the floor outside the panic room, since they locked Sam in, so Bobby, in a move that’s totally below the belt if you ask Dean, calls in the big guns. It’s nearly lunchtime when Ellen sits down beside him. Sam’s mostly quiet now. Every now and then he’ll beg Dean to let him out and the misery in his voice breaks Dean’s heart. 

Ellen pats his knee. “Why don’t you go upstairs? I’ll sit with Sam for a while.”

Dean shakes his head. “I gotta be here, Ellen. I owe him that.”

Ellen wraps an arm around his shoulders and kisses the top of his head lightly. “This is gonna be a marathon, not a sprint. You need to pace yourself. Go on upstairs, now. I’ve got this.”

Dean decides to allow himself to bask in her maternal comfort for a little while longer. 

“This is so fucked up,” he says.

Ellen pulls on his ear lobe, hard enough to elicit an _ow_.

“Don’t think I won’t wash your mouth out, Dean Winchester.”

The threat is kind of comforting in an odd sort of way and Dean feels himself relax, just a little.

“I wasn’t ready for this,” he confesses. “I never thought,” he huffs out a laugh. “My dad always seemed so indestructible, you know? I mean, I saw him take some terrible beatings, but he always came up swinging. And then he goes and throws himself in front of a bullet and now all we’ve got left is me and I…I’m not even sure I can do this. I ain’t a big picture kinda guy, Ellen. I’m more…point and shoot. This all feels way over my pay grade and, you know, I’m tryin’ to keep my game face on for Sammy, but I’m just…I’m gonna let everybody down.”

Beside him, Ellen sighs. “Your Daddy was one helluva man,” she says. “Driven; determined; demanding; highly competent. And those are some big boots to fill. But he was also a ruthless, paranoid sonofabitch. People were loyal because they respected him and they feared him. People are loyal to _you_ because they respect you and they love you.”

Dean snorts and rolls his eyes. 

“You’re a good man, Dean. You listen to people, and even though you can be ruthless, you’re not needlessly violent. Sam would follow _you_ to Hell and back, but your Daddy never could get him to fall into line. In a lot of ways you’re a better leader than John ever was.”

“Tell that to Gordon,” Dean says darkly. 

“I have. But, Dean, you know his history, so I’m sure you can see why this thing with Sam’s got him bent all out of shape.”

Dean frowns for a moment and then his eyes widen as he recalls. Gordon’s sister had been a junkie. When Gordon was a rookie soldier, first working for the Winchesters, she’d followed him to one of the Family’s meth labs and stolen five pounds of ice, worth a little over ten thousand dollars. The Family couldn’t let that stand and Gordon had earned his button by killing his sister. Dean had only been fifteen at the time, but he remembers thinking that he could never kill Sammy, no matter what. 

“Gordon thinks that all junkies are the same,” Ellen says. “That it’s only a matter of time before your brother turns on us.”

Dean harrumphs. “Well at least Sammy getting clean should get him off our backs.”

Ellen purses her lips. “I ain’t so sure,” she says. “Listening to Gordon talk, he seems very sure that a leopard can’t change its spots; that getting clean never lasts.”

Dean lets his head thunk back against the wall. “I’m gonna have to deal with him, aren’t I?”

“Looks that way. In the meantime,” Ellen gives Dean a gentle push, “Bobby’s got some papers he wants you to take a look at, so why don’t you go on upstairs and I’ll sit with Sam?”

Dean agrees. But only because there are security monitors in the library that he can use to keep an eye on Sam.

\--

Dean doesn’t leave the house for the next three days. He reads reports. He makes and takes phone calls. He issues orders and makes decisions. 

Sam’s in a bad way. When he’s awake he’s either violent and angry, or depressed and crying. He sleeps a lot. And sometimes he hallucinates, which Dean figures must be something to do with the Demon Blood, because it’s not a typical symptom of Speed withdrawal. 

Dean spends a lot of time sitting by his brother in the panic room, letting Sam rant and throw things, and then wrapping his arms around him when he shakes and cries. He holds a bucket under his head when he pukes. When Dean takes a break either Bobby or Ellen stay with Sam. They’ve been a Godsend and Dean doesn’t know what he’d do without them. 

On Day Four, Dean gets a phone call from long-time Santangelo soldier, Uriel, who tells him that Zachariah wants to see him.

“Now’s not really a good time,” Dean says.

“Zachariah insists that you make time,” Uriel says.

Dean’s never really liked Uriel. He can’t seem to help sneering at the Winchesters; doesn’t think they’re fit to head up a Family, because they don’t have an Italian surname. 

“Look, Uriel,” Dean begins, but Uriel cuts him off.

“The Winchesters owe us, Dean. You come to us, time and time again in need of our help and we help. We are a key ally and when we call on you, we expect you to respond.”

Dean runs a hand over the creases in his forehead. “Okay,” he says. “When and where.”

Ellen agrees to stay with Sam and Dean brings Rufus in to watch her back while he and Bobby go to meet with the Santangelos. 

It’s lunchtime when Dean and Bobby walk through the front door of _Vesuvius Italian Family Restaurant and Bar_ in Kansas City. Dean flirts shamelessly with the waitress who escorts them to Zachariah’s table as a matter of course. _Ladies’ man_ is part of the persona he’s cultivated, after all. 

He nearly trips over his own tongue when he sees Castiel standing to attention not far from Zachariah’s table. The way Cas looks through him, you’d never know he’d had Dean ass up and begging for his cock only a few weeks ago. Dean swallows and forces himself to look away. There’s another guy standing to attention on the other side of Zachariah’s table and Zachariah himself is watching Dean closely, with narrowed eyes.

“What’s with all the goons?” Dean tries to mask how uncomfortable Cas’s unexpected presence has made him.

“These are uncertain times,” Zachariah says smoothly. “Please. Have a seat.”

He and Bobby sit down, Dean with his back to Cas because he’s pretty sure he’s going to give himself away if he has to look at him again.

The waitress hands Dean a menu and he smirks and says, “Thanks, Darlin’,” on reflex.

They order food and drinks and Zachariah asks Dean why it’s Bobby with him and not his new Second. Dean tells him that Sam’s taking care of another important matter and, speaking of which, could they maybe move onto what was so urgent he had to drop everything to come to this meeting.

But Zachariah insists on eating first, with a pompous smile on his face that Dean just really wants to smack off him. He clenches his fists beneath the table and tells himself he doesn’t need a cigarette. Dean forces himself to make small talk with Zachariah and Uriel, and Bobby does his bit too, reminiscing with Zachariah about people and events from the old days; the days when John and Bobby were in charge and Dean didn’t have all this responsibility weighing on his shoulders.

Eventually though, Zachariah gets to the point. The bottom line is that the Santangelos believe that The Devil’s Own are out of control and The Winchesters need to rein them in. 

Dean pauses, with his glass of expensive red wine half way to his lips. “You want us to declare war on them?”

Zachariah smiles bombastically. “Oh, I don’t think an actual declaration is necessary, but we do feel that the time is right for you to deal with Nick Morningstar in a more, shall we say, _decisive_ manner.” 

Dean stares at him. “No offense, Zach,” he says. “But I’m gonna need to hear that from Michael.”

“I speak for Michael,” Zachariah bristles and glowers.

Dean presses his lip together. No way in Hell would he consider moving on Michael Santangelo’s half-brother without say-so from the man himself. He may be new at this _Capo_ business, but he’s not a fucking idiot. 

“Okay,” he says to Zachariah. “Was that all?”

Zachariah frowns. “No,” he looks at Uriel and the look that passes between them is anything but reassuring. “Several of your men have been seen fraternizing with The Devil’s Own. Gordon Walker. Creedy. Kubrick,” he hands Dean a manila folder which contains surveillance photos, one of which shows Gordon taking a bundle of cash from a Demon. “You have traitors in your midst, Dean, and we do believe the time has come for you to take decisive action, both with your own traitors and the biker scum.” 

It’s a sore point with the Santangelos that when he was kicked out of the Family business, Nick Morningstar elected to start up his own one percenter motorcycle club. The Mafia sees themselves as a cut above all other organized crime groups, and the older, more prestigious Families like the Santangelos view themselves as part of an honorable society. They get offended if they’re called a ‘crime gang’, but Nick Morningstar revels in being a common thug.

“Thanks for the heads up,” Dean says. 

“So you’ll deal with it?”

“Sure.”

The waitress slips Dean her number as they’re leaving and Dean can’t help the way his eyes dart up to look at Cas. Cas is staring straight at him from where he’s walking beside Zachariah and the look on his face is so intense that Dean’s stomach somersaults. If they were at Cas’s place that look would mean Dean was about to get hogtied and then edged for hours. 

As soon as they’re outside, Dean dumps the slip of paper with the waitresses number on it into the nearest trash can and he doesn’t think he imagines the pleased smile that flits across Cas’s face before each party turns and they go their separate ways.

“Well?” Bobby says.

Dean shrugs. “Can’t say I’m too surprised. Gordon’s always been a bit of a loose cannon.”

Bobby brushes him off impatiently, ‘Yeah, yeah. I know we’re gonna have to deal with that. It’s been on the cards ever since your old man bought it. And you obviously ain’t gonna move against Nick Morningstar without hearing it from Michael himself. What I wanna know is, what’s with you and that Santangelo goon who was eye-fucking you all through lunch?”

Dean damn near chokes on his own saliva. 

‘Uh, what?” he says lamely when Bobby finishes patting him on the back.

Bobby rolls his eyes. “Don’t even try, boy. You know you can’t lie to me worth a damn.”

Which is absolutely true. Partly that’s because he doesn’t really have to. For the most part, Bobby accepts Dean for who he is and there’s never really been anything where they’ve been on a different page. 

“We, uh, may have met at a bar,” Dean confesses.

“So you know each other?” 

Dean nods.

“In the Biblical way?”

Dean nods again.

Bobby harrumphs. “Well,” he says, “I know Zachariah and Michael’s views on the ‘sin of sodomy’, so I’m gonna hazard a guess that he’s deeper in the closet than you are.”

Dean’s pretty sure his cheeks are a more scarlet shade of red than they’ve been in a long time. “Uh, yeah,” he says. “That’s pretty accurate.”

“So I probably won’t have to kill him,” Bobby concludes.

Dean whirls on him fast. “You do not move on Cas without my say-so.”

Bobby looks way too pleased with himself. 

“Cas, hey? So I’m guessing he’s the mystery someone that Sam mentioned you were seeing.”

They reach the car and Dean slips behind the wheel of his Baby. 

“You and Sam gossip more than a couple of ninth grade girls,” he grumbles. 

Bobby chuckles and then sobers with a sigh.

“Alrighty then,” he says as Dean starts up the engine. “Let’s talk about how we’re gonna handle Gordon and his co-conspirators.”

\--

Dean sends out Lee Chambers and Steve Wandell to pick up Gordon. Meanwhile, he, Rufus and Bobby head out to Rufus’s cabin and the three of them pick a nice quiet spot in the surrounding forest and dig a deep grave.

And then they go back inside the cabin to wait. When Gordon arrives, Dean tells him to take a seat, and then he shows him the surveillance photos, one at a time. 

Gordon looks at each photo in turn and then raises his eyes to meet Dean’s. “There’s a war coming, Dean,” he says. “And your brother is gonna bring it down on our heads.”

“Yeah? How d’you figure that.”

“He’s in Nick Morningstar’s pocket already. Lucifer,” he uses Morningstar’s biker nickname, “is gonna use Sam to kill you, just like he used him to kill his friends, his girl, his father. Now, I could have warned you, but you’re weak, Dean. And I knew you’d never do what needed to be done. I figured if I appeared to cooperate with Morningstar, maybe it’d keep the casualties down when the war came.”

“You took their money,” Bobby comments. “You did more than _appear_ to cooperate.”

Gordon nods. “Lucifer wanted me to kill you and Rufus, because he knew that if Sam killed Dean you’d never let him take control of the Family. But Sam is weak. A junkie. I would never allow him to head up this Family either. I promised myself that I would kill Sam too and then I would run things.”

Gordon’s tone is calm and moderated. His eyes are clear and bright.

“You’re delusional,” Dean says. 

“You realize you’ve betrayed the oath you made to this Family,” Bobby tells Gordon.

“That’s punishable by death,” Rufus adds.

Dean nods.

Gordon smiles, just a little. “So it’s come to this then,” he meets Dean’s eyes again. “You have no idea what I faced to get here, Dean. I lost everything. My family. Now my life. But it's worth it, because your Daddy believed in me. And I'm gonna do what you couldn’t. What you were too weak to do. I’m finally gonna kill the most dangerous threat this Family faces.”

“Get him outta here,” Bobby snarls and Lee and Steve strongarm Gordon to his feet.

“Wait a minute,” Dean says, his eyes narrowed and his heart beating triple time. “What do you mean? We’re about to put a bullet in you. How do you think you’re gonna kill anyone between now and then?”

But Gordon just smiles beatifically and then lowers his head and begins to pray.

Dean licks at his lips and gets out his cell phone. 

Bobby quirks an eyebrow.

“Calling Kubrick and Creedy,” Dean explains. “I wanna know where they’re at.”

Kubrick’s phone rings out. Dean calls Creedy. And then tilts his head, because that ain’t an echo he can hear.

“Is that coming from out front?” Rufus says, turning and walking toward the window.

There’s a flash and a crack and then the front window explodes, the curtains flap and billow and Rufus staggers back a step and then slumps to the floor.

There’s another flash and Dean has the table turned on its side and is squatting behind it with his gun drawn by the time a bullet buries itself in the wall behind him. 

Bobby is on his knees at Rufus’s side and his face is grim. His fingers press against Rufus’s neck and his eyes tighten. He shakes his head and Dean makes desperate motioning gestures to Bobby to get behind the cover of the table as another crack sounds, then another. 

Bobby’s scrambling on all fours toward Dean when a moose head falls from the wall. One of its antlers spears Bobby’s calf and he cries out.

“Goddamn it, Dean,” he hisses. “Tell me again how it’s a good idea not to bring Kubrick and Creedy in just yet.”

Dean scrabbles for Rufus’s first aid kit, which is kept in the wooden cabinet beside the table. 

“I thought it was the right call,” he says as he pulls the moose off of Bobby, who grunts out _sonofabitch_ through gritted teeth. 

Dean bandages his leg. “Gordon’s the ringleader. The others, I thought we could save. I mean they ain’t the sharpest tools in the box; they’re pretty easily led.”

Bobby snorts. “Got that right.”

There’s another gun blast and Steve Wandell, who’s been hiding behind the sofa, helping Lee hold Gordon down, suddenly gets to his feet, holding Gordon before him like a human shield.

“Got your boy in here,” he calls. “If you keep shooting you might hit--”

That’s as far as he gets before there’s another gun blast and a bullet hits Gordon square in the chest and then buries itself in Steve’s shoulder.

Gordon collapses with wide unseeing eyes and Steve drops back behind the sofa clutching his arm.

“Like I said,” Dean tells Steve, “not the sharpest tool in the box.”

He tosses over the first aid kit. 

“Ok, I’ma deal with this. Hang tight.”

Dean makes his way to the back door of the cabin and inches it open slowly before edging outside. He creeps around the outside of the cabin, hugging the log walls, and then peers around to see if he can spot Creedy.

Creedy is squatting in front of the porch, looking up at the cabin’s front window from in between the railings. His gun is drawn. 

Dean pulls back and considers his options for a moment before deciding _fuck it_ and rounding the corner at speed, his gun up and cocked. 

Creedy startles and tries to turn, but somehow manages to get his gun stuck between the porch railings. Dean shoots him between the eyes and watches him fall. He confiscates his gun and then calls out that Creedy’s down and he’s coming in, before walking up the front steps and through the front door. 

Inside, Bobby is breathing heavily and looking pissed. Chambers is keeping pressure on Waddell’s wound and Rufus…Rufus is still dead. 

Fuck. 

Dean sighs. “Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do. Lee, you and I are gonna bury Gordon and Creedy. Then I’m gonna take Steve to Dr Roberts to get patched up.” 

Dr Cara Roberts is a friend of the Family and deals with any injured members who can’t go to a hospital, because the staff would ask too many questions and possibly feel obligated to inform police. 

“I’ll gonna take you to hospital, Bobby,” Dean continues, “and we’ll tell them it was the moose head on your wall that did this to you. Lee, you’re gonna have to stay here and sit Shiva for Rufus on behalf of the Family.” 

The Winchesters are the only Family Rufus has—had—left. 

“Give the rest of us time to get clear,” Dean continues, “and then call Sherriff Mills. Tell her you and Rufus were planning on a hunting trip and you found him dead when you got here.”

Everyone nods and then Dean calls Ellen, because he’s still feeling spooked by Gordon’s last words. He’s pretty sure that Gordon meant Sam when he said he was going to kill the most dangerous threat to the Family.

Ellen answers and says that she hasn’t seen Kubrick, but that she’ll be extra vigilant. Bobby has security monitors and Rumsfeld, so Dean’s pretty confident Ellen will see and hear Kubrick coming. She knows where Bobby keeps his weapons and she’s a damn good shot. Dean tells himself he’s not worried and sets about getting Gordon and Creedy buried. 

Next, Dean gets Steve to Dr Roberts and Bobby to the hospital, but he doesn’t stick around because he needs to be back by Sam’s side. If someone’s coming for him, Dean needs to have his brother’s back. 

He calls Ellen again to check in and to let her know he’s coming. He has his cell phone in one hand and his keys in the other as he crosses the parking lot heading for his car.

Dean doesn’t even see the man who steps out of the shadows and tasers him, he just hits the ground. His cell phone bounces from his limp hand and slides across the asphalt. 

“Hello?” Ellen’s voice says. “Dean? Hello?”


	5. Chapter Four

Dean is cold. His wrists and shoulders hurt. His head feels fuzzy and… Dean’s eyes fly open as he suddenly realizes that the last thing he remembers is walking toward his car at the hospital.

The first thing he sees is the far-too-close face of Alastair, The Devil’s Own’s sergeant-at-arms and close confidant of Nick Morningstar. And if that unwelcome shock wasn’t enough, he also realizes that he’s buck naked and tied by his bound wrists to an overhead pipe in a dank, dull basement. 

“Such a beautiful canvas,” Alastair says, trailing the tip of a knife blade down Dean’s chest.

Dean can’t quite supress his shudder.

“What do you want, Alastair?”

He’s proud of how steady his voice sounds; because there’s no doubting that he’s in serious trouble here.

“What do I want?” Alastair echoes. “I want to motivate you. Michael Santangelo kept your father on a leash and now he plans to keep you on a leash too.” 

Alastair’s knife makes another pass down Dean’s chest and this time he presses a little more firmly. Dean hisses as blood beads on his skin and runs down his torso. 

“Men like us, we’re not meant to be bound by society’s rules. We’re warriors. Killers. Men from a simpler time. A time when men were _real_ men--”

“Women were _real_ women,” Dean interjects, “and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were _real_ small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.”

Dean loves Douglas Adams. Cas does too.

Alastair smiles and Dean doesn’t think he’s seen many things scarier. “You mock me,” he says. “But I’m going to show you your true nature.”

\--

When Dean was fourteen he once accompanied his Dad and Bobby to a meeting with Nick Morningstar, Azazel and Alastair. The meeting took place at a Dive Bar and Dean’s pretty sure they would’ve let him in even if he hadn’t been in such infamous company. It’s not that he looked old enough to drink or anything—at fourteen, even in combat boots and a too-big leather jacket he still looked like a kid—no, it was simply the kind of place that didn’t much care for legalities. 

The meeting was the first time that Dean had been allowed to participate in business that involved a party outside The Family and he’d been thrilled, and a little nervous. 

Truth be told, he’d been disappointed by The Devil’s Own. Nick Morningstar was an arrogant douche who wanted everyone to call him Lucifer. Pathetic. Dean had rolled his eyes at that. Azazel seemed just like any other regular Joe on the street and Dean found him colorless and boring. Alastair had a funny voice. Out of the three of them, he was the only one who Dean really didn’t like and that was because he was skeevy; kept looking at Dean like he was some kind of tasty treat. 

Sam and Dean always had a lot of minders and security. Even if the safe house they were staying at was in a low-rent area, they weren’t really in any danger. But they weren’t blind and they weren’t stupid. One place they’d stayed, when Dad had been following an interstate lead, had been a long-stay hotel on a major road. It was the summer school holidays and while Sam mostly stayed inside and read, Dean spent a lot of time sitting out on the steps, sharing his cigarettes with the kids turning tricks out there. There were three girls and two boys and one of the boys, Caleb, had become a good friend. Dean had been planning to ask his dad about the kids as soon as he got back, but when John turned up the first thing he did was instruct one of Dean’s minders to get rid of the kids and find out who was running them, with such a scowl on his face that Dean was almost too scared to speak up.

“It’s not their fault, Dad!” he said, voice shaking. “Please don’t hurt the kids.”

John had explained that he didn’t allow children to work the streets in his territory and that it was against the Winchester creed to hurt kids. He told Dean that whenever the Winchesters found kids turning tricks, they handed them over to Pastor Jim, who ran a shelter for homeless young people, funded by the Winchesters. It was one of the things that bought them a lot of tolerance from the local LEOs. 

When John found out who’d been pimping out the kids (from Caleb, who hated the man) he had him beaten to within an inch of his life and then he was dumped, unconscious, just the other side of the state line. 

Caleb has been a staunch Winchester loyalist ever since and still works with Pastor Jim. 

The point is (Dean actually does have a point; he didn’t just meander down memory lane for no reason) that even at fourteen, Dean recognized what it meant when a guy looked at a kid like the kid was a tasty piece of meat. So Alastair skeeved Dean out from the get-go. 

After that Dive Bar meeting, Dean went to the restroom and, yeah, no way was he standing at a urinal in there, so he went into a cubicle. When he came out, Alastair was standing right in front of the cubicle door.

“So pretty,” Alastair said. “So much promise.”

“Get out of my face,” Dean said.

Cold water splashes into Dean’s face, bringing him back to the agony of the present, and he flinches and coughs and opens his eyes.

Alastair is _right there._ Again.

“Get out of my face,” Dean rasps. His throat hurts from all the screaming.

“Disappointing, Dean,” Alastair sing-songs. “You can’t pass out now; we’re just starting to have fun.”

Fun ain’t the word Dean would use and he actually, on occasion, does find it fun to let people tie him up and hurt him. The right combination of pleasure and pain can be arousing. 

What Alastair is doing to him, is not arousing. It’s torture, plain and simple.

Dean’s chest, back, ass and thighs are covered in hundreds of tiny, shallow cuts, made one at a time, over a period of several hours, by Alastair’s very sharp scalpel. Occasionally, Alastair doused Dean’s wounds in methylated spirits or threw salt on them. 

Once Alastair decided that he’d finished cutting into Dean he put nipple clamps on him and hung weights from them. Then he put clamps on his balls and hung weights from those too. 

Next, he’d wheeled over a trolley with some kind of machine on it; some kind of machine with switches and dials and lots of leads and wires coming off it. Dean’s eyes had darted to Alastair’s in horror.

“I see you recognize my little toy,” Alastair had trilled.

He switched it on, turned one of the dials up about half way and then touched two of the leads together, creating a spark.

“I wonder how loudly you can scream,” he’d said.

It had been the shock administered to his balls, conducted through the metal clamp that had finally taken Dean’s consciousness 

“You screamed so beautifully for me,” Alastair says dreamily. He folds his arms and cocks his head. “But as much as I love electric shock therapy, there’s just not enough blood.”

“Why are you doing this?” Dean asks again.

He’s lost track of the number of times he’s asked, but he only ever gets the same confusing answer: _to motivate you._

Motivate him to what?

Kill Alastair? 

Go after The Devil’s Own?

He gets the same predictable answer yet again and then Alastair’s eyes light up with unholy glee and he claps his hands and then rubs them together.

“Ginger root!” Alastair exclaims. “It will burn so exquisitely inside of you. And while it’s burning, I can make pretty blood-red patterns on your skin with my favorite flogger.”

He moves out of Dean’s line of sight and Dean resumes pulling as hard as he can at the rope that’s suspending him from the beam above. Every now and then he hears a creak and he’s hoping hard that, eventually, he’ll be able to break either the rope or the beam and free himself.

Dean nearly leaps out of his boots—or he would’ve if he’d still been wearing boots—when a loud thumping _smash_ sounds from somewhere above and to the right.

“What the…?” Alastair says.

There’s another crash and then a body comes flying down the stairs and lands in a crumpled, bloody heap on the floor.

Another body quickly follows and Alastair is scrambling for his knives as the _thud, thud_ of heavy footsteps sounds on the stairs. 

A massive shadow appears on the wall beside where Dean is hanging and he swallows and wonders what fresh torment this new development will bring.

It brings Sammy, who rushes toward Dean with a pained cry, as if Alastair isn’t even in the room. 

Alastair throws a knife at him, which Sam bats away with inhuman speed. He turns on Alastair then and is in front of him in a couple of big, fast strides. He reaches out and snaps Alastair’s neck with his bare hands, snaps it like it’s a twig; like it’s nothing.

Dean has barely blinked and Sam is back by his side. He cuts the rope and Dean collapses; would’ve fallen to the floor if his brother hadn’t caught him.

“Easy, easy,” Sam is saying. “I’ve got you ‘bro.”

Dean is too exhausted to feel humiliated at being caught naked and trussed up like a turkey. He figures that’ll come later.

Sam unties his wrists and Dean pulls off the clamps— _sonofabitch!_ —while Sam finds his clothes bundled in a corner. 

He helps Dean get dressed and, yeah, that humiliation? It’s starting to kick in now. 

He swats away Sam’s attempts to help him put on his boxers and Sam gets the message. He stands back and watches with undisguised irritation as Dean slowly, painfully, loses his nakedness. 

Dean doesn’t make eye contact with his brother until he’s got his boots and his leather jacket on and what he sees nearly makes him collapse all over again.

Sam’s pupils are so enlarged Dean can’t see any hazel. Hell, he can barely see any white.

“Sammy,” he whispered. “What have you done?”

“What needed to be done,” Sam says. “C’mon, let’s get you home.”

Sam’s driving some old rust bucket of a truck and Dean can feel the cuts on his back open and ooze blood as he climbs up into the passenger seat. Much as he loathes riding shotgun, even he has to concede that he’s not up to driving right now. 

“Is Ellen okay?” Dean asks, because Sam is clearly not locked in the panic room and he looks drugged to the gills.

“Yeah,” Sam throws the truck into reverse and turns it around, speeding out of the industrial park where Alastair had been keeping Dean captive. “With so many inner-circle men dead and injured, she said we needed all hands on deck and that if anyone could find you, it would be me.”

“Good call,” Dean says. “We were planning on letting you out tomorrow anyway, figured you were clean.”

“I was,” Sam says.

“But?” Dean’s tone is careful. Non accusatory. 

“But you were missing,” Sam says. “I knew it had to be The Devil’s Own so I tapped one of my contacts, Ruby. She’s a sweetbutt. Maybe something more. Nick Morningstar seems to respect her some. I met her when I went to confront him that time and we hit it off. She’s a sweet girl. We, uh, may have hooked up a time or two. Partied a little.”

“Damn, Sammy,” Dean says. “I thought you had better taste.”

Sam’s face twists. “It wasn’t…it wasn’t anything,” he says. “It was just,” he shrugs and Dean gets it, he really does, that need for _something_ to fill the emptiness, even if it isn’t anything good.

“She told me Alastair had you. She said that if I was gonna go up against him, I’d need an edge. She had this glass vial filled with thick red liquid,” Sam’s voice trembles.

“She shot you up with pure Demon Blood.”

It’s a statement, not a question.

“Yeah.”

_“Sammy,”_ Dean’s voice breaks on his brother’s name.

“I know,” Sam says miserably.

And this time it’s Dean’s _heart_ that breaks.

\--

Like a scene out of Groundhog Day, Dean stands in front of the panic room door and listens to Sam screaming; begging Dean to let him out.

“You know that ain’t really Sam in there, right?” Bobby says. “Not really.”

Bobby released himself from hospital AMA when he learned that Dean had been kidnapped. He’s on crutches, strong antibiotics and strong painkillers, but he’s still more together than Dean. Maybe Dean should resign and let Bobby be the Boss. He’d probably be better at it. 

“Dean?”

“I know, Bobby.”

“He just has to…get it all out of his system.”

Dean nods again. “I need a drink.”

He goes upstairs and finds the whiskey, pouring himself a generous serve. 

He turns and Ellen’s there, in her nightgown, which he guesses is fair enough given that it’s gone midnight. She pulls him into a hug and he can’t help flinching and hissing in pain.

Ellen pulls back and looks at him.

“Take your shirt off.”

Dean can’t even muster up a sassy, inappropriate comment. He’s had more than enough involuntary nakedness for one day and he really just needs some privacy to lick his wounds. 

“Not now, Ellen,” he says and he knows, by the way her face softens, that she can hear the pain and exhaustion in his voice.

“You’re hurting, Sweetheart,” she says softly. “Please let me help.”

Dean has never been able to say no to a woman offering maternal comfort, so he takes off his jacket, his shirt and his Henley. Ellen’s eyes narrow at the sight of his red abused nipples and then widen when she realizes that his entire torso is covered in tiny cuts. She bustles from the room and is back quickly with a bottle of antiseptic spray, which she applies to his front and back.

The spray stings, but quickly becomes soothing and when Dean remarks on that, Ellen explains that the spray contains an analgesic as well as antiseptic. 

“Can I take that with me?” Dean asks when Ellen’s finished.

She hands it over and Dean heads up to bed. He does his best to spray his butt and thighs, and then applies some of the spray to his balls too, because he’s still in a lot of pain down there and he hopes the numbing qualities of the spray will do its thing. He’s just about to switch off the light when there’s a knock at his door. It’s Bobby, and he hands Dean a blister pack of the heavy duty painkillers the hospital had given him. 

“Figured you could use these,” he says. “Get a good sleep, because Dean? We’re gonna have to talk about what happened in the morning.”

Dean grimaces, but nods, and Bobby leaves, satisfied.

Dean takes one of the tablets and settles himself down. He’s asleep within minutes and doesn’t stir again until the sound of shouting rouses him, a little after six am.

He stumbles downstairs wearing nothing but his boxers and finds Bobby yelling into his cell phone. Ellen is quiet now, and has tears running down her face as she listens to whoever’s on the other end of her cell phone.

“No, not Roy or Walt,” Bobby is saying, voice loud and urgent. “They were tight with Gordon. Well I don’t know, Kevin!” he bellows after a pause, “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re a little thin on the ground right now!”

“Hey!” Dean interrupts. “What’s going on?”

Bobby lowers his cell phone and rubs a hand over his forehead. “Fire-bombings,” he says. “The main meth lab and The Roadhouse. Ash is dead. Jo is missing.”

“She’s been found,” Ellen says. “She got out. But she’s hurt. Some minor burns and smoke inhalation. They’re taking her to the hospital.”

“Go,” Dean tells her. “You need to be with your daughter.”

Ellen doesn’t need to be told twice.

“What does Kevin need?” Dean asks Bobby.

“Somebody senior to deal with Jody at the meth lab.”

Dean holds his hand out for Bobby’s cell phone.

When Kevin realizes that it’s the Boss himself on the phone, he starts stuttering and Dean has to tell him to take deep breaths until he calms down.

“Kevin, is Jody there yet?” 

Kevin says that she isn’t, just a handful of uniforms, but apparently Jody’s on her way.

“Okay, You’re clear on the story?”

“Yessir. We make organic fertilizer here.”

“Very good. You answer as many of Jody’s questions as you feel comfortable answering and you tell her that I’ll be there soon.”

Kevin’s relief is like a living, breathing thing.

“Not so fast, son,” Bobby says when Dean turns to head back upstairs. “We still need to talk about what happened to you yesterday.”

Dean tells him that they will, but that the immediate crisis has to take precedence. “You stay here and keep an eye on Sam. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

\--

Jody’s pissed and she gives it to Dean with both barrels. It’s not the fact that The Winchester Family was making _organic fertilizer_ that she’s pissed about; it’s the fact that they couldn’t stop their rivals from blowing the place up and creating a danger to the general public.

“I thought you were handling it,” she grouses. 

Dean reaches for the pack of cigarettes in his inside jacket pocket and…it isn’t in there.

Fuck.

“I _am_ handling it,” he tells Jody.

And yeah, Dean figures he deserves Jody’s raised eyebrow and indelicate snort. He can’t even manage to convince himself. 

She does tell him that she’s sorry about Rufus and that she’s doing her best to find out who firebombed _The Roadhouse_ and hurt Jo, but to Dean it’s just another way of saying that he can’t look out for his people. 

When she finally lets him leave, with his tail well and truly between his legs, Dean sits in his car and calls Michael Santangelo. Again. He gets voicemail. Again. 

Fuck.

By the time he gets home, Dean’s feeling pretty ragged. He hurts, he’s craving a nicotine hit, and apparently he sucks at being Head of The Family, if the past few weeks are anything to go by.

Bobby insists on ‘debriefing’ Dean on his kidnapping and torture, which is the exact opposite of fun, and they muse for a while on what Alastair meant by his claim that he was merely ‘motivating’ Dean. 

“I think The Devil’s Own want a war,” Dean says. “We know the Santangelos want one. And I think, they’ve told The Devil’s Own that they won’t interfere this time.”

Bobby nods. “It was only the Santangleos getting involved that got The Devil’s Own to back off last time,” he frowns. “But why would the Santangelos want a war? Ain’t nobody gonna come out lookin’ good if there’s a big mob war.”

Dean shrugs. “Maybe they’re hoping we’ll wipe each other out; leave the whole playing field free for them.” 

Dean gets to his feet and slaps Bobby on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go and check on Sam.”

Bobby gets a squinty, uncomfortable look on his face.

“What?” Dean says.

Bobby takes his baseball cap off and squeezes it in his hands. “Sam ain’t doin’ so good.”

Dean turns and stares at him. “You think maybe you could’ve led with that? When I first got back?”

Bobby shrugs. “Knew you wouldn’t focus if you knew how bad he was. And there ain’t nothing we can do about it. He’s just gotta get the pure drug outta his system.”

“How long’s that gonna take?” Dean grumbles.

“Hang on,” Bobby snarks, “I’ll just get out my Demon Blood Detox manual. Oh wait, there isn’t one.” 

“This ain’t funny, Bobby. Sam could _die._ ”

Bobby nods. “Yeah. He could. This could go bad, Dean. You should maybe start preparing yourself for the worst.”

\--

Sam stirs when Dean enters the panic room. His face is pale and grey and he’s soaked in sweat, breathing heavily.

“Dean?” he rasps.

Dean swallows. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s me, man.”

He pulls a chair across and goes and sits beside his little brother.

“How you doin’, kiddo?”

“Been better,” Sam croaks. “You?”

“Been better,” Dean echoes. 

Sam takes a shallow, rattling breath and Dean looks at him sharply. “You’re not allowed to die, Sam, okay? You hear me?” 

He reaches out and takes hold of his brother’s hand. It’s cool and clammy.

“I’m gonna take care of you, just like I always do. You listening, Sammy?”

Sam smiles and shudders and closes his eyes.

Dean’s eyes widen and his heart beats hard and fast in his chest. He slips his fingers around his brother’s wrist until he can feel his pulse, thready and erratic, but there.

He sits for a moment, just watching Sammy breathe, not sure whether he’s unconscious or just asleep. And then he begins to talk.

“You know, when we were little—you couldn't’ve been more than five—you started asking all these questions. How come we didn't have a mom? Why do we always have to move around? Where'd Dad go when he'd take off for days at a time? I remember I begged you, ‘Quit asking, Sammy. Man, you don't want to know.’ I just wanted you to be a kid... Just for a little while longer. I always tried to protect you... Keep you safe... Dad didn't even have to tell me. It was just always my responsibility, you know? It's like I had one job... I had one job... And I screwed it up. I blew it. And for that, I'm sorry. I should’ve been there for you when you needed me. I let you down, man. But I guess that's what I do. I let down the people I care about. I let Dad down. I let Rufus and Ash down. I let Ellen and Jo down. I let Bobby down. If you…if you don’t make it, how am I supposed to live with that? I can’t, man. I won’t.”

Tears are falling freely down Dean’s face now and he wipes at them. God he’s pathetic. He isn’t the man his father thought he was, that’s for sure. And now the whole Family, the whole State probably, is screwed, because he isn’t going to be able to keep things together.

Dean pushes back from the chair and stumbles to his feet. God, he needs a smoke.

“Going out, Bobby,” he calls, snatching up his keys and heading for the door. 

He pulls it open and finds Sheriff Mills and Deputy Hanscum on the other side, Jody with her fist raised to knock.

“In a hurry to go somewhere, Dean?” Jody says.

“Ran outta cigarettes.”

“Can we come in?”

“Sure,” Dean widens the door and lets the law inside.

“I regret to inform you,” Jody says, when they’re all seated, “that your known acquaintance Elwood Kubrick has been found dead.”

And that? Dean wasn’t expecting. In fact, he’d completely forgotten that Kubrick was still on the loose. 

His genuine surprise must show on his face, because both Jody and Donna deflate just a little.

“You didn’t know?” Donna says.

Dean shakes his head. “How did he die?”

“Someone slit his throat. Any idea who may have had a grudge against him?”

Jody’s looking at him closely, with narrowed eyes. So, okay, she knows something about the in-house issues he’s been having. 

“Kubrick was one of a small group who were having some trouble adjusting to me being in charge. But I didn’t order him killed. I figured he—and everyone else—would come around eventually, and honestly, I’ve had more important things on my mind.” 

“I was sorry to hear about Rufus,” Donna says. Her face brightens suddenly. “But you’ll be pleased to hear that Joanna-Beth is doing well. She’s a spitfire that one. Her Momma sure has her hands full there.”

Dean smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

\--

Dean uses his passcode to unlock the key safe and a moment later he’s unlocking the front door of the safe house. He puts his bag of groceries down on the kitchen counter and then opens the fridge and puts the milk inside. All of the Winchester safe houses are stocked with food—except for perishables—and most even have the odd bottle of alcohol left over from previous tenants. Dean’s brought his own though, and he finds himself a glass and an ashtray and goes and sits in the living room, with his feet up on the coffee table. 

Cigarettes. Tequila. Netflix. Cell phone. He has all the makings of a guy’s night in right here. 

He switches on the television and orders a meat lovers pizza with a side serve of buffalo wings and hot sauce and then pours himself a generous serve of Tequila and lights a cigarette.

Dean knows he’s being a coward, staying here instead of going back to Bobby’s, but everything about that place—Bobby’s crutches, Ellen’s sad face, his brother, locked in the panic room, maybe dying—is a reminder of just how badly he’s failed. He just. He needs a break.

And maybe if he gets drunk enough (Dean pours himself another drink) he’ll be able to go out and find someone to fuck him without feeling like he’s somehow betraying Cas.

Dean’s cell phone rings and it’s as if the thought of Cas somehow conjured the man himself.

“Dean,” Cas’s gravelly voice is like a balm to his soul. 

“Hey. I was just thinking about you.”

There’s a pause and then Cas says, “I heard that you had been kidnapped by Alastair and that Alastair is now dead.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Dean pours himself another drink. “Sammy rescued me. He was awesome.”

“I heard about Rufus too. And _The Roadhouse_.”

“Yeah,” Dean savors the Tequila’s burn as it slides down his throat. “Lost a Meth lab too. Ash died.” 

“I’m so sorry,” Cas says. 

“S’ok,” Dean shrugs. “Shit happens.”

The doorbell rings.

“Ooh. Hang on a minute, Cas. My pizza’s here.”

There’s a pause while he pays for the pizza and then he’s back on the sofa, shoving a piece in his mouth.

“Oh, hey, what are you wearing, Cas? We could have phone sex!”

“Please don’t talk while you’re chewing, Dean.”

“Dean?”

Dean swallows. “You said not to talk while I was chewing! Can’t have it both ways, man.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“Yep. I’m on my fourth triple shot of Tequila right now.”

“No more,” Cas says.

Dean sniggers. “Ooh, Cas. I like it when you get all bossy with me.”

Cas sighs. “I know you do, Dean. But right now I have some important information to tell you, so can you please focus?”

“Yep,” Dean says, picking up another slice of pizza. “Focusing right now.”

“I have been privy to some interesting conversations. The Santangelos—or at least some of them—want a full scale war; a total mob apocalypse. Zachariah has been very busy meddling, trying to play your Family and The Devil’s Own off against each other. His plan is for the Santangelos to come in toward the end of the troubles and mop up whatever dregs remain, taking for themselves the territory that currently belongs to both The Winchesters and The Devil’s Own. The only thing I am uncertain of, is whether Michael knows. I have been unable to get hold of him.”

Dean scoffs. “Yeah, join the club,” he sighs. “But why? Mob wars are messy. A lot of people die. LEOs get twitchy. We all come under a lot of scrutiny. Michael said you guys were happy with the distribution of businesses and territory when I talked to him at Dad’s funeral. Why would The Santangelos do this? Why now?”

“The answer to _why_ is always power. The answer to _why now_ …things are unstable. You’re a new leader. Young. Inexperienced.”

“They think I’ll be easy to pick off,” Dean says sourly.

“We need to speak to Michael,” Cas says. “We need to stop this.”

“Preaching to the choir, buddy.”

There’s a moment of awkward silence and then Cas asks how Sam’s doing.

“Can we talk about something else?”

“Of course. I’m sorry.”

There’s another awkward silence. 

Dean pours himself another drink. “Man, we suck at talking on the phone.”

He sighs. “Maybe I should just…go to The Devil’s Own’s compound, shoot Lucifer and then cap as many of ‘em as I can get before they get me. Maybe that’d be enough to shut them down.”

“That is a terrible idea,” Cas growls. 

“Yeah, well. Sometimes going nuclear’s the only option you got left. Ice the devil, save a whole bunch of people.”

“Unless you kill all of them, you’ll just trigger a series of revenge attacks. And you’ll be dead. I am not okay with that plan.”

‘Aw, Cas. I didn’t know you cared so much.”

“Well, we have developed a fairly profound bond.”

Dean snorts. “And the sex is good too.”

“It is,” Cas agrees. “I’ve missed it.”

“You can do better than me, Cas. I‘m like the ultimate unattached drifter. And you should maybe choose someone who’s likely to have a longer life span.”

“Nothing in life is certain,” Cas says cautiously, and ain’t that the truth.

Dean makes a half-hearted attempt to get Cas to have phone sex with him, but Cas doesn’t quite seem to get the concept and they end up saying good night. Dean tries not to make it sound too much like good bye, even though he knows it could very well be.

It’s late, but he calls Bobby to get an update on Sam. 

Sam’s still asleep—or in a coma—no one’s really sure. Bobby warns him again to be prepared for the kid not making it through the night. And yeah, he’s preparing for that. 

Bobby also tells him that Ellen called to say that Jo had taken a turn for the worse; developed some kind of infection in her burned skin or something. 

Dean pours himself yet another drink. Really, the best thing he can do right now is go and wipe out The Devil’s Own; the full patches at any rate. Sure, that’ll leave a lot of prospects and hangers-on—but foot-soldiers need leadership and if Dean cuts the head off the snake, it’ll save a lot of lives, even if it costs him his own. Azazel and Alastair are already dead. That leaves Nick Morningstar, Crowley, Rosco and Raul. He’ll probably have to kill Lucifer’s Old Lady, Lillith, too, because she’s a bitch and a half and quite capable of leading the Demons in a vendetta against The Winchesters. Besides, he’s positive it was The Devil’s Own who firebombed The Roadhouse and the lab. He has to be seen to deal with them; can’t let the law be the ones to do it. 

Dean goes and gets his weapons duffle. He’ll go tonight. Element of surprise and all that. Get this thing done. And if Sammy doesn’t make it through the night, well there’s a good chance Dean won’t either. 

He has another shot of Tequila, for the road.

\--

The Devil’s Own Compound—known as The Pit—is deep in the heart of Kansas City’s industrial district. It’s surrounded by a twelve foot high, chain-link fence that’s topped with barbed wire, it’s flood-lit and there are surveillance cameras everywhere. Dean parked several blocks away, as is his custom when there’s mayhem afoot, because it makes for an easier getaway if your vehicle isn’t caught up in a roped-off crime scene. He’s currently one building over from The Pit, surveying it from a rooftop. He suspects that the amount of Tequila he consumed over the course of the evening may have had something to do with him having made what he now concedes was a very bad decision.

There is no way, no how, that he’s getting into The Pit without some serious planning. Drunken wishful thinking is not going to get him access. Luckily, it’s not too late for him to just back away and go home and that’s exactly what he’s planning to do when a noise from somewhere behind has him turning his head. He doesn’t get it very far turned before something slams into him and a moment later he’s pressed against the rooftop railing and somebody has an arm around his throat and a hand across his mouth.

Dean’s had this particular body pressed against him enough times to recognize it, and he knows the person’s smell too. He relaxes in Castiel’s grip and is compliant when the man spins him around. Cas is—Dean’s pretty sure angry would be an understatement. His eyes are flashing righteous fury and Dean may be a badass, but he finds himself shrinking back, a little scared by the depths of emotion he’s seeing here. 

Cas grabs hold of the lapels of Dean’s leather jacket, hauls him forward and then slams him back against the railing.

“I rebelled for _you_ ,” Cas hisses through clenched teeth. “And this is how you repay me? By giving in? By trying to _martyr_ yourself?” 

He slams Dean back against the railing a couple more times and Dean lets him. Actually, Cas is surprisingly strong so ‘lets’ is probably overstating things. 

“I’m sorry,” Dean says. “It was a dumb move.”

The words seem to take the wind out of Cas’s sails just a little. He’s still staring down at Dean like some kind of wrathful avenging angel, but he looks a little less smite-y now. 

“Good,” Cas says. 

And then he’s on Dean, his lips pressing brutally hard and his tongue demanding entrance. Dean has no choice but to accept the ferocious plundering of his mouth; not that he ever had any intention of resisting. Still, it’s an angry kiss, as if Cas is trying to punish him. And Dean kind of gets that. He was on the brink of doing something stupidly suicidal, after all. 

When Cas finally pulls back his ire doesn’t seem to be dampened. In fact, he’s looking pretty fired up again. 

“Cas,” Dean begins.

“Shut up,” Cas says, and Dean finds himself spun around again. “Hands on the rail.”

Dean complies. 

Cas reaches around and unzips Dean’s jeans.

“Hey!” Dean’s hands fly off the rail as his jeans and boxers are yanked down.

“Hands. On. The. Rail.” Cas punctuates each word with a hard smack to Dean’s ass.

“Fuck!” Dean grabs the rail again and tries to decide whether this is the hottest or the most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to him.

Little Dean seems to be voting for _hottest_ if the way he’s standing to attention is any indication.

“Don’t move,” Cas says. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

And he leaves Dean leaning up against the rooftop railing with his ass hanging out.

He’s not gone long. In fact, after dithering for a short, embarrassed moment, Dean has just bent down to pull up his pants when Cas returns.

“I told you not to move,” Cas growls, smacking Dean’s ass again. “Hands back on the rail!”

“Ow! Fuck. Stop it, Cas!”

Cas stops with the smacking as soon as Dean’s hands are back on the rail. Dean really wants to reach back and rub at his stinging ass, but he gets a feeling Cas isn’t going to let him do that, so he waits. He hears a squelch and then two lube-slicked fingers are pressing into his ass. 

The prep is fast and rough, but when Cas finds Dean’s sweet spot and rubs against it with a fingertip, Dean can’t help moaning and spreading his legs wider. 

“C’mon, Cas,” he says. “Fucking give it to me.”

Now it’s Cas’s turn to be compliant. Dean’s nowhere near stretched enough, but he relishes the burn and the feeling of too full, too fast. Pretty soon Cas is hammering his sweet spot with every thrust and Dean’s gripping the rail tightly and trying not to sound like a two dollar whore. 

Dean feels Cas’s thrusts start to speed up erratically and knows that he’s about to come. He takes a hand off the rail and reaches for his dick and Cas pulls back and slaps his ass hard.

“Cas!” Dean whines. “I can’t come like this, man. C’mon.”

“Too bad,” Cas snarls and comes hard.

In Dean’s ass.

Without a condom.

Fuck.  
Cas pulls out and then pulls up Dean’s boxers and jeans. Dean feels Cas’s come sliding out of him and grimaces.

“You’re not seriously gonna leave me like this, are you?” he presses a hand against his aching groin.

Cas raises an eyebrow. “You need to learn patience,” he says. “So you can wait ‘til we get home.”

And apparently Dean has a kink for being ridden hard and put away wet, because he almost comes in his pants at the thought.

Huh.

“We’ll take your car,” Cas adds.

Dean frowns. “How did you get here anyway? You don’t even have a car.”

“Hotwired one,” Cas says shortly.

“And the lube?”

Cas shrugs. “Just happened to be in the car.”

Dean pulls a face. “Gross! Who even knows where that’s been?”

Cas is serenely unperturbed by the horror of second hand lube and Dean is planning to bathe in hand sanitizer when an even better question occurs to him.

“Wait…how did you know I’d be here?”

Cas sighs. “You sounded…depressed…when we spoke earlier. I was worried you might do something stupid. So I tracked your phone. When it became obvious where you were going, I moved to intercept you.”

They arrive at the Impala and Dean stands stock-still and stares at Cas. “You…tracked my phone?”

“Yes. There’s an app.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. “Right. Coz that’s not creepy and stalkerish at all.”

“You live a dangerous life, Dean,” Cas raises his chin, completely unrepentant. “I could imagine many scenarios where being able to find you quickly would be advantageous. Last night, for example, had I known you were missing sooner, I could have helped find you much more quickly.”

And that brings a lump to Dean’s throat, because if Cas had been someone who Sam and Bobby and Ellen would’ve contacted as a matter of course, then Sam wouldn’t be fighting for his life right now against full strength Demon Blood.

“Give me your keys,” Cas says.

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”

“You’ve been drinking, Dean. I don’t think you should be driving.”

“Well you’re not driving my Baby.”

Cas stares at him. “The government trusted me with a fighter jet; I think you can trust me with your car.”

 

“And if she had wings,” Dean slides behind the wheel, “maybe I would,” he cocks his head. “But probably not.”

Cas opens the passenger door. “You are an infuriatingly stubborn man, Dean Winchester.”

“Cas? You owe me an orgasm, so get in the damn car.”

\--  
Dean wakes up and stretches languidly. His ass is aching and throbbing and he’s not surprised after the workout it got last night.

After they got in the car, Cas suggested that actually, it would probably be better if they went to Dean’s place, because Cas didn’t want to risk any of the Santangelos realizing that he and Dean knew each other.

As soon as they got inside the Safe House, Cas bent him over the back of the sofa and slid inside him in one determined push and then fucked him until the friction from his dick rubbing against the sofa tipped Dean over the edge.

They cleaned up and moved things to the bedroom, where Dean got out a box of condoms and threw them at Cas.

“Dude,” he said. “We fucked bare twice. Not cool.”

Cas explained that he’d had himself tested and was clean; he even got the test results out of his wallet to prove it.

“And I am confident that you are clean,” he said, “because you have always been very diligent about condoms with me and you carry hand sanitizer around with you and get grossed out by second hand lube.”

Dean had to laugh at Cas’s observation, because he’s not wrong. When it comes to hygiene, Dean is somewhat particular. Bobby often calls him Princess Fussypants. Not that he intends to give Cas that particular piece of ammunition to mock him with.

The next hour had involved Cas edging Dean to the brink of insanity and then blowing his brains out through his dick—Dean may have even blacked out for a while; either that or just plain fallen asleep. Either way, he’d woken up sometime later, on his stomach, with Cas pushing into him from behind. Cas had rolled his hips slowly, thrusting in so deeply that Dean could feel it in his stomach, and with his hands pinned, Dean had no option but to let the pressure of the sheets against his cock bring him slowly, but steadily to orgasm.

Dean pulls himself gingerly into a sitting position and reaches for his phone. It’s a little after 10.00am and he can hear Cas pottering around in the kitchen.

Dean calls Bobby who tells him that Sam is a lot better this morning and so is Jo. Dean is so relieved that he almost cries.

Cas bringing in coffee and a stack of pancakes is a welcome distraction and as they sit together in bed and eat breakfast, Dean reflects on how much he _likes_ this and how much more grounded and content he feels when Cas is around.

They talk when they’ve finished eating. Dean apologizes again for going off half-cocked. He explains about Sam, tells Cas how scared he was that his little brother was going to die. 

“I wasn’t planning to survive,” he says. “I was just gonna try to take as many Demons with me as I could.”

Cas growls low in his throat.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “It was stupid and selfish and I’m sorry. We do need to deal with the situation though.”

Both Cas and Dean try to call Michael and when they don’t get through yet again, Cas tries to call his brother Gabriel, but he can’t get through to him either. Finally, he calls his mom and asks her if she’s heard from either Michael or Gabriel lately. Naomi is vague and elusive. She says something about them both being on sabbatical and when Cas hangs up his eyes are narrowed.

“Something big’s going on,” he shakes his head. “I don’t like it.”

Dean shrugs. “Well, whatever it is, we still need a plan to deal with the situation on the ground here. Cas…how do you feel about coming to a meeting with Bobby? Maybe meeting Sam?”

Cas’s face lights up. “I would love to meet Sam. And Bobby too.”

“Just a heads up. They know about us. Sam even knows who you are.”

Cas’s eyes become comically wide and he swallows. 

“It’s okay,” Dean reassures him. “They’re cool with it.”

Cas doesn’t look convinced.

\--

It turns out that Bobby is less ‘cool with it’ when he knows who Cas actually is. In fact he damn near hyperventilates when he learns that Cas isn’t just some random foot soldier, but Michael’s younger brother. Even learning that Cas has been providing Dean with insider information doesn’t mollify him, in fact he pulls Dean aside and hisses in his ear that if Cas was willing to betray his blood family, then surely he’ll betray anyone. He settles down a little when Dean explains that they’re not convinced that Michael knows what’s going on and that maybe it’s Zachariah who is the real betrayer. 

When Sam comes slowly and carefully down the stairs looking like he just went ten rounds with a hellhound or a werewolf or something, Dean’s mouth falls open and he rushes to take his brother’s arm.

“I’m okay,” Sam says. But he leans against Dean anyway. 

“You scared the crap outta me little brother,” Dean says.

Sam grimaces. “Yesterday was intense. But by this morning I wasn’t feeling too bad. I think with it just being that one dose, it moved through my system pretty quickly. I’m feeling a little shaky right now, but my head’s clear and I feel okay.”

Sam spots Cas sitting on Bobby’s sofa and freezes, cocking a questioning eyebrow at Dean.

Dean grins. “Sammy, I’d like you to meet Cas. Cas, this is my brother Sam.”

Sam moves into the living area with a pleased smile on his face. He brushes back his wayward hair and then reaches out a hand.

Cas stands up and takes it.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Cas says formally. 

“Yeah. You too, man. So, you’re my brother’s….?” 

He makes it a question and slides a sideways look at Dean.

“Yeah,” Dean says fondly. “He is. And I’m his.”

Cas’s face lights up and he reaches for Dean and drags him into a very thorough kiss.

Bobby makes gagging noises.

“All right, break it up you two before I turn the hose on you.”

Dean pulls away from Cas and sees that both Bobby and his brother are looking quietly pleased. It means a lot to him. 

Bobby makes coffee and fixes snacks and they sit around the kitchen table and talk out the situation with the Santangelos and The Devil’s Own. They propose and discard several possible solutions and then Ellen comes in beaming, saying that Jo’s infection has cleared up and they’re hoping to let her go home tomorrow. The news makes Dean’s heart feel even lighter. 

Once Ellen has gone, the war council resumes and Dean notices that Sammy has that intense inner stare that means he’s nutting something out inside his noggin.

“You wanna share with the class, Sammy?”

Sam refocuses and clears his throat. “I think I’ve got an idea,” he says.


	6. Epilogue

“I don’t like this,” Dean says, for what must be the millionth time.

“It’s too late for second thoughts,” Sam says as the two of them enter the big old barn on the outskirts of Lawrence. 

Zachariah, Uriel, Castiel, Ishim and Virgil are waiting for them.

It’s a good turnout, better than Dean expected and he has to contain the smug smile that wants to break out across his face.

“What’s going on, Dean?’ Zachariah says. “You said you had urgent information for Michael about Lucifer. Information that couldn’t wait.”  
“Yeah,” Dean scrunches his nose. “I was lying. You see, Zach, this morning I spoke to Michael myself.”

Zachariah draws himself up, chin jutting. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“Oh it is,” Dean says. “He reached out to _me_ , you see. I know all about this ‘sabbatical’. I know exactly what’s going on.”

Zachariah’s eyes fill with zealous fervour. “Then you know why it’s so urgent that we act now to take out Lucifer and The Devil’s Own.”

“Really Zachariah?” Nick Morningstar says as he walks into the barn, his Demons trailing behind him. “Because I thought we were getting rid of The Winchesters and once I had, it would be proof I was fit to assume my rightful place as head of The Santangelos.”

“Why are you here, Nick?” Zachariah blusters.

Lucifer nods at Sam. “He told Ruby that he wanted to give me some important information about The Winchesters in exchange for more of our new drug.”

“No I didn’t,” Sam says.

He totally did, it was the pretext they used to lure The Devil’s Own to this place, at this time.

“What?’ says Ruby. “Yes you did.”

Cas speaks up from his place among The Santangelos. “She’s lying. She works for us.”

Lucifer’s brow furrows.

“No she doesn’t,” Zachariah says quickly.

But it seems that whatever tenuous trust had existed between Zachariah and Nick Morningstar has gone and everyone is suddenly tense and hostile.

“He’s got a gun!” Dean yells, throwing himself to one side so that he’s no longer in between The Santangelos and The Devil’s Own. Sam throws himself in the opposite direction and they both scramble behind hay bales as everyone else in the room gets their own gun out.

Sam fires a bullet into a hay bale and that’s all it takes for all Hell to break loose. It’s also Cas’s signal to move out of the line of fire and Dean is relieved to see that he manages that. 

By the time the dust settles everyone on both sides is dead, with the exception of Zachariah, who’s lying unarmed on the floor, bleeding from a stomach wound.

“I got to hand it to you, Sammy,” Dean says. “Bringing them all together all at once, it was a damn good plan.”

Sam grins. “Yeah, well, when you got Godzilla and Mothra on your ass, best to get out of their way and let them fight.”

“You’re such a nerd,” Dean says fondly. He frowns. “It’s a shame Crowley didn’t come. I think we’ve got pretty much all the main Demon players except for him.”

He walks over to where Cas is standing, staring down at Zachariah. Dean reaches out and slaps a hand against Cas’s back. “You good?”

Cas shakes his head. “You were planning to overthrow Michael,” he says to Zachariah. “To install Nick Morningstar as Head of The Family.”

“He would have been a puppet,” Zachariah somehow still manages to sneer. “But with Michael in prison, Ezekiel dead and Gabriel missing, we needed a male from Carlo’s line to head up The Family. We’re not like the Cacciatores who’ll allow the descendants of their daughters into senior positions of power. We’re old school.”

“Michael’s in prison?” Dean says, his eyes widening in shock.

Zachariah frowns. “I thought you knew that? You said you talked to him.”

Dean shrugs. “The best way to get information is often to pretend you already have it. And you fell for it, you sanctimonious prick.”

Dean gets out his gun and shoots Zachariah, which is a kindness really, considering the messy stomach wound. 

\--

Since the shootout at the barn, Dean has more or less permanently moved into the safe house just outside of Lawrence and Cas stays at Dean’s place more often than he stays at his own.

Michael Santangelo’s arrest has finally hit the press—apparently he was picked up when he arrived back home after attending John Winchester’s funeral. The FBI is crowing about an important federal witness. Cas believes the witness is his half-brother Gabriel, that he turned rat after Michael had his girlfriend Kali murdered. Michael didn’t approve of Gabe dating an Indian woman. _Racist as well as homophobic_ , Dean said snidely. _What a loss_. Cas thinks Gabriel is in witness protection now.

The Santangelos are in disarray. Castiel has bowed out of the organization, telling his mother Naomi that he no longer believes The Santangelos are men of honor. She knows he’s working for the Winchesters now, but Cas refuses to tell her that he and Dean are together, because he knows she would never accept it.

Dean and Cas aren’t _out_ out. There are people who know; Bobby and Sam, of course, but also Ellen and Jo, Benny, Pastor Jim and Caleb. Pam and Lisa know too. They’re all quietly happy for him, but they know the relationship has to stay on the down-low for now. 

Dean wishes fervently that wasn’t the case. 

Still, they make up for it in the privacy of their own home.

“Fuck yeah,” Dean says. “Like that, Cas. Yeah, just there.”

He’s on his back with his knees hooked over his forearms and his legs spread wide. Cas is looming over him, traditional missionary style, and the tip of his dick rubs against Dean’s sweet spot with every thrust. Cas is staring down into Dean’s eyes with an intense expression and Dean wants to look away, because it’s too much, too intimate, but Cas doesn’t like it when he turns away and Dean’s getting better at accepting that Cas loves him.

Cas’s said it a few times now. Dean damn near had a panic attack the first time, but now he can hear it without freaking out. He hasn’t been able to say it back yet, but he tries to show Cas how much he does love him in all sorts of little ways, like the fact that he’s quit smoking, hardly drinks anymore and has listened to both his advice and Sam’s when it comes to the future direction of The Winchester Family. 

One day soon, Dean figures he’ll actually be able to say those three little words. 

In the meantime, he’s busy expanding The Winchesters’ legitimate businesses and moving away from the more violent ones, such as gun running and protection rackets. They still supply drugs and sex workers, because Dean thinks it’s stupid those things are illegal, and they already had a reputation for providing clean, healthy, non-trafficked sex workers and good quality, safe drugs. They also control most of the gambling in the state. Profits are good and while they’ve lost some soldiers who don’t like the new direction, they’ve still got a very loyal core crew.

Sam’s going back to law school next year, but just the local college, and Cas will step into his role in The Family Business, albeit unofficially. Sam will still be close though, and he’s going to stay involved. As Dean had predicted, Sam and Cas get along like a house on fire. The other day, Dean even found them listening to a podcast on the History of the Protestant Reformation together. 

Dean shudders at the memory. He would honestly prefer to go under Alastair’s knife again than to sit through a multipart exploration of each of Martin Luther's 95 theses; so he’s glad they’ve got each other to geek out with over that kind of stuff.

So all up, Dean’s the happiest he’s been, possibly ever. 

When he’d first figured out who Cas was, he’d been sure this was all going to end in heartache. But now? For the first time in forever, he’s not just going through the motions and doing what has to be done. He’s not being Daddy’s good little soldier and suppressing who he really is; his own wants and needs. For the first time in a long time, Dean has hope for the future. 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to my reversebang artist Dreammaiden for the inspiring art prompt and premise "What if the Family Business was organized crime?" Dreammaiden's Art Post can be found [**HERE**](http://alittlehuntress.tumblr.com/post/157206590887/art-for-the-2016-spn-reverse-bang)  
>  Thanks also to my beta reader Endlessevalina for wading through all those typos!  
> And a final thank you to the reversebang mods for running one of my very favourite challenges! You guys rock! 
> 
> **Trivia and Refernences:**  
>  The story title, Full Leather Jacket is a play on _full metal jacket_ which is the name of a type of small arms projectile that is soft on the inside with hard armour on the outside, much like Dean Winchester. Of course, Dean's armour is his _leather_ jacket. :D It's also the name of a Sopranos episode.
> 
> The crime family that the Winchesters represent is the Cacciatore family. In Italian, Cacciatore means Hunter.


End file.
